


The Game

by RagMan_RIP



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Adventure, Consensual Kink, Gunplay, M/M, Non Consensual, Object Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RagMan_RIP/pseuds/RagMan_RIP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam Lambert needs a vacation between the U.S. Glam Nation tour, and the European/Asian leg of the tour. Lane sends him to Rio de Janeiro to relax, but a fresh new sense of adventure leads Adam away from the cozy hotel and his beach plans. Embarking on an exotic sex fantasy, he gets a lot more than he paid for when he meets a young Brazilian man on the run from dangerous enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Game

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**FIC: The Game - Part 1**   
_   
[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/ragman_rip/pic/00002q35/)

**Title:** The Game  
 **Author:** [](http://ragman-rip.livejournal.com/profile)[**ragman_rip**](http://ragman-rip.livejournal.com/)  
 **Pairing(s):** Adam/OMC  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Warnings:** Extreme violence, language, prostitution, gunplay, object insertion, some gore, angst, non-con (once).  
 **Word count:** 24,570 (not including Spanish and Portuguese translations at the end).  
 **Summary:** Adam Lambert needs a vacation between the U.S. Glam Nation tour, and the European/Asian leg of the tour. Lane sends him to Rio de Janeiro to relax, but a fresh new sense of adventure leads Adam away from the cozy hotel and his beach plans. Embarking on an exotic sex fantasy, he gets a lot more than he paid for when he meets a young Brazilian man on the run from dangerous enemies.  
 **Disclaimer:** While I invented the OMC, Adam Lambert (or any of his mentioned or featured friends) does not belong to me, and this is utterly a work of fiction. Also, I adore Adam, so I’m not out to “do terrible things” to him in any way. It’s just an adventure tale with a few dark corners, for your entertainment. Not making a dime off of it, either. Please don’t repost in other places without permission, or tweet it to him (yikes). Thanks.

*****************

 **A/N:** BIG thanks to my betas, @AuntieMaim, @Ranmaru_san, and @Flynnsgirl; this would have been real hard to read without them! Any mistakes that remain are my own.

*****************

  
Glaring light beat down on his oversized sunglasses the moment Adam left the airport. A heat intense enough to snatch the breath from parched lips enveloped his body, sweat mixing with dust and sand carried on the stifling breeze. For once, as droplets trickled down his chest and back, he didn't recoil from the slick, gritty feel of it.

Clutching his forgotten bottle of coconut water, he whispered, “Finally, something real.”

“Sir?”

People bustled around him, unleashed by Lane’s long distance orders. Suppressing a sigh, Adam turned to the porter. “Yes?”

“Your car is ready, sir. May I take your bag?”

“I’ll keep this, thank you.” Holding tighter to the small black leather satchel, he got into the back of the waiting limousine.

As the car pulled into traffic, the city and scenery instantly captivated him. The majestic Sugarloaf and Corcovado mountains dominated the scene, but what drew his gaze more were the hills blanketed in ramshackle dwellings and the awesome spread of the glittering turquoise sea. Rio was everything Lane had promised; though it was still a compromise – starting with the resort hotel they were taking him to.

As a frown slanted his mouth, a building ahead caught his eye. “What’s that? Driver, stop! Go there!”

“Sir? That is not your hotel.”

“It is now. Change of plans,” he added, flashing a melting smile at the man’s worried scowl. “Humor me,” he said when neither the scowl nor the car stopped. His voice had an edge to it, one people who were not Lane never ignored.

“Yes, sir.”

Adam sat forward on the seat, eager to see the natural charm of the seashell pink and orange hotel he was tossing a $1,200 per night suite over for. It looked like Zagat’s would have run away before they could rate it.

“Perfect. I’m staying here.”

The lobby doors were propped open and ceiling fans moved the heat in lazy circles. One long counter dominated the pink room, with sparse white wicker furniture for guests and not a television in sight.

He loved the timeless look of it, the absence of modern things that normally overwhelmed a person. It was so charming and inviting that he wasn’t even worried about abruptly trivial things like a decent Wi-Fi signal.

The counter was polished and worn wood, bare except for a collection of flyers, tourist brochures and business cards that were scattered on one end, knocked out of their neat piles.

A tiny ancient man behind the counter smiled at him so brightly that Adam couldn’t stop a similar grin from stretching his lips wide. He approached as the circus of driver and porter brought in his pair of bags as if they were moving furniture for a king.

“Good morning. I’m sorry, but do you speak English?”

“Yes, sir. Room?”

“Please, yes. Thank you. It’s so quiet here, I love it already.”

“Ocean?”

“Pardon?”

“Room, ocean side? Balcony?”

Adam beamed at him. “Brilliant, yes.”

Pulling out a dusty ledger, the clerk adjusted half-moon glasses on a thin dark nose. “Name?”

“Oh, ah... Sam, Samuel Green.” When the clerk merely wrote the pseudonym down without a hint of recognition, Adam grinned at the still-scowling driver and gave him a wink.

“How many nights?”

“Three.”

Quoting a tiny fraction of the cost of one night in Lane’s chosen resort, the clerk asked for cash.

Adam traded a few bills for an actual metal key that had the number 333 stamped in faded gold on a pink plastic rectangle. _Where key cards fear to tread_ , he thought. “Which way to the room?”

“My grandson will show you. Pablo! 333!”

On impulse, Adam gathered up a few of the cards and brochures; one never knew if something good lurked off the beaten path in a place like this.

Expecting a ragtag child to appear, Adam sucked in a breath when Pablo turned out to be closer to twenty-two and painfully, exotically beautiful.

Dark eyes swept up and down Adam’s body, taking in tight black jeans, damp t-shirt, and designer leather boots with a bold appraisal that made the singer’s dick twitch with interest.

Pablo claimed the bags from the stunned porter and hefted them with an easy strength. “Follow, senior?”

“Right behind you.”

“Sir!”

Adam turned to the driver and porter, handing each of them a tip in folded bills. “Thanks for everything, but you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll call a taxi when I need to leave. Thanks! Oh, and I’ll call Lane and tell her what’s up.” He paused to trade a sly smile with Pablo, and then added, “Eventually.”

***

Breath ragged and drenched in sweat, Adam reached out to spread Pablo’s ass cheeks wider, watching his cock sink to the condom rim inside his body. The long smooth back bowed over his hips as the inaptly named reverse cowgirl position allowed him to lay back and enjoy having his brains fucked out on a slow burn.

He was definitely checking the “excellent customer service” box on the little survey behind the do not disturb sign hanging on the doorknob outside.

“Oh papi, you fuck so good....”

Adam chuckled. “That phrase is going to be a new favorite.”

With a huff of breath, he propped himself up on one elbow and reached around the slender hips to jack the younger man’s hard and leaking dick. After a few more strokes of hand and ass, he gave up trying to time it and just gave in to the heated pressure in his gut. Hips thrusting sharply when he came, he nearly dislodged the guy, losing his grip on his dick entirely.

“Oh, fuck....” Collapsing onto the pillows, he tried to breathe. “Turn around; sit on me again and I’ll suck that off for you.”

“No, no... you’re the guest –”

Wagging a finger at him, Adam smiled. “That doesn’t work for me. I want to suck your dick. Yeah?”

Using his legs to flop him onto his back, Adam struggled up and shifted to lean over him. Wrapping one hand around the base of the pretty thing, he kissed its dusky and shining head, licking all around the ridge.

“Full service, right? You promised. You’ll be finished when I swallow your cum.”

Tanned fingers clutched white sheets as Adam swallowed it down.

***

Adam sat on the wrecked bed with a towel wrapped and tucked around his hips. He sifted idly through the brochures and other paper flotsam he’d dumped in front of him. “Pablo, wait – what’s cool to do here? Besides just fucking all weekend.”

Pablo smiled and paused at the door. His cotton shirt and pants were mostly straightened up, and nothing was on inside out.

“What you want, papi – beach? Hang gliding?”

A slick feeling of dissatisfaction twisted in his gut, unwelcome. “Not tourist stuff; I want adventure. I want something… crazy, wild – sexy.”

“Crazy adventure sex?”

“Yeah.”

Pablo nodded at the pile of papers. “You got a black card there, with red letters? Got dice on it. You like that, try that.”

Hunting for it, Adam asked, “Casino? Not really what I –”

“Not gamble, papi... sex game. You pick a boy, he plays the game you want.”

“Wow, okay, humm....”

Spotting the black card in the pile of pastel colors, he plucked it out to read it. There was no address or any other information; just a phone number. The name of the business was either in Portuguese or Spanish, but a line in English was printed below it.

“‘Rio Fantasy. We make it real.’” Pressing his lips together, his fingers stroked over the dice on the card. “What kind of fantasies?”

“For a guy like you? Anything you want.”

Adam looked up to see that sly smile again. “Sounds better than hang gliding.”

***

“Lane, I’m fine. Are you still in Seattle? There wasn’t anything wrong with the resort. I wanted to see some local color, have an adventure. Singapore? Can’t wait, but you said I needed a stress-popper quickie vaca; you played pin the plane ticket on the singer, I’m relaxing as ordered, right?” Taking a quick swig of bottled coconut water from his luggage, he admitted, “I have something lined up for this evening. An adventure into local color, yeah. It sounds awesome. No, nothing crazy or dangerous; stop worrying. It’s sort of a… club.”

With his minimal couture locked in his luggage, Adam had dressed in his black jeans and worn biker boots. The t-shirt was McQueen, black with a stylized skull on it. In the spirit of low-key, he wore just a little eyeliner and skipped the rest, spending more time working his hair into that perfect messy look.  
His wallet, with cash and driver’s license, was chained to his jeans and secured in a back pocket. The iPhone was tucked – on silent – into an inside pocket of his black jacket, along with his room and luggage keys.

The black card was wrapped in a torn piece of hotel notepaper with an address and some kind of code number scrawled across it. Trying not to smear the ink with sweat, he held it pinched in two fingers.

Adam walked out to his balcony and leaned on the metal railing, breathing deeply and loving the exotic smells, good and bad, on the warm breeze. It wasn’t dark yet, and the scenery pierced his heart all over again. Rich and poor were piled on top of each other, beauty and dilapidation mixed perfectly into something truly shocking and wild, something he was hungry to experience for himself.

A car horn sounded below, and he glanced down to see his taxi.

“Here I go.... Thank God Lane didn’t grill me too bad on my entertainment plans. She’d freak out even without details.”

Leaving the balcony and securing the doors, he checked the other inside pocket of his jacket as he went down in the rickety and squealing old elevator. Tucked securely in the pocket, a collection of condoms were wrapped around a small bottle of fancy lube. Patting it, he grinned and waved to the cabbie as he almost trotted out of the lobby.

“Buenos noches, senior,” the old clerk called after him.

“Oh, good night!”

When the cabbie quit smirking at the address he gave and started to head there, Adam leaned back in the seat and tried not to fidget. He felt a buzzing excitement as he watched the street rise into the jumble of ramshackle buildings up the hill; away from the clean, darkening sea.

  
***

Adam’s taxi left him on a narrow dirty street surrounded by structures that didn’t look entirely stable. The building the cabbie had gestured to was one of the few with lights on inside, but it looked more like a prison than a place that delivered fantasies. When the sun set, he was swallowed up by darkness as he hesitated.

“Well, inside is bound to be safer,” he muttered, and approached the building.

As the woman’s voice on the phone had instructed, he pressed the call button on the box by the door and read off the code number he’d written down. After a few deep breaths, the door opened, bathing him in yellow light. Another woman’s voice spoke to him in what might be Portuguese, her silhouette that of a tall and slender beauty. The whole situation felt very film noir except he was unsure of his lines and might actually be playing the victim.

 _I hope this isn’t just an elaborate way to rob and murder tourists._ “Hello? It’s… Mr. Green, I have an appointment to discuss business? I’m sorry; I don’t speak, uh… I only speak English.”

“Oh, yes, come in,” she responded with a thick accent.

Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that the place really did look like a club. The woman beckoned for him to follow her into a sitting area and offered him a drink.

“No, thank you, I’m fine. Are you the person I discuss things with?”

“Sim, eu sou; yes, I am. Here is a book. You want a boy or a girl?”

“These are, ah, I don’t mean to offend, but we’re talking about adults, right?”

“Adults, yes, young. You want older?”

“No, young is good, a boy.”

“You look at this book, see a boy you like? I will get drinks.”

“Uh, sure. Okay.”

He picked up the large photo album, but scanned the room before opening it. The furniture appeared to be fancy, but it was probably well-made knock-offs. The emerald and gold decor looked much more lavish than the building that housed it, and it was hard to shake the impression of a brothel.

 _Shouldn’t have expected a movie set. Pick someone who looks like he can role play and get upstairs; or call another cab and admit defeat_. Pressing his lips together in a firm line, he opened the album.

All of the photos were mixed, male and female, and they were candid shots, almost as if it was a real family album. Assuming that was for appearances, he started paying attention to the boys. Most were not tiny blonde twinks, but there were many tiny dark-haired twinks, with smooth caramel skin and bright brown eyes.

Yet the photo that caught his eye wasn’t a twink. He was in his early twenties, with some impressive muscle under tattooed caramel perfection. He held a toy gun, but the expression on his sculpted face was intensely serious – dangerous. Many of the people held a prop or two, all of them, he slowly realized, indicated the sort of fantasy they were offering. The tattoo that hooked him was a vine with red roses that decorated the collarbones. Each thorn tip was done to give the illusion of a drop of scarlet ink.

 _Beauty and pain…._

Adam glanced up when the woman returned with a bottle of Patrón and two glasses on a tray. Grateful it wasn’t already opened, he rose to help her, pouring the tequila himself. Nervousness he had never felt in off-the-wall German sex clubs crept into his adventurous mood, threatening it. To fight it off, he drank.

Business was discussed quite matter-of-factly, and Adam started to hand over a wad of cash when the woman held out a hand to stall him.

“Which boy did you want?”

Without hesitation, Adam pointed, his finger touching the vine and roses around the pretty throat. “Him – gunplay sounds fun; very Al Capone.”

The madam, or whatever her title was, did hesitate. “Oh, yes…. Would you like to go up to the suite now? I will have your boy sent up to you.” Her smile was slow, but when he offered the money again, it widened as she took it.

Adam carried his glass with him, and when the woman offered him the bottle, he smiled and took it before following her up a flight of narrow stairs.

Told to wait only a few moments, he spent that time exploring the so-called suite. It was no bigger than his efficiency apartment from his pre-Idol days, except instead of a kitchenette, it had a huge bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. More impressed with it before they’d turned the lights on, he turned them back off, only leaving on the soft yellow lights in the bathroom.

It was a little warm in the room, so he set the bottle and glass on a bedside table and went to the window. Unlatching it, he opened the old-fashioned panes outward just a little at first, but when the cooler night air flowed in, he pushed them all the way out against the shutters. Glancing out, he saw no fire escape or anything else except some pipes and the dark windows of the next building only ten or so feet away.

At a loss when no one came to the door, he sat on the bed and poured more tequila. _So maybe I won’t get murdered, but it might be a scam? Wait and watch the tequila disappear or…?_

A sound outside the window startled him. Going to investigate with glass in hand, he stuck his head out and looked around. The sound seemed to be coming from the roof. Glancing up, he was shocked to see the figure of a man above him. Vaulting over the rim of the roof, the man grabbed the pipes and went still, poised like someone repelling down a cliff.

Adam froze and watched as the man began to move down the pipes until he was level with the window. With a grunt, the strange man kicked out from the wall, struck it again on the opposite side of the pipes, and with a twist worthy of a gymnast, swung out feet first and launched himself at Adam.

Stumbling backward with a cry, Adam’s back struck the door as the man sailed through the open window and landed in a crouch on the carpet in front of him.

“Cierre para arriba. Todavía esté.”

Groping for the doorknob, which was digging into his back, Adam gulped when he saw the man draw a gun from the back of his jeans. “Holy shit.”

In the minimal glow of the bathroom lights, the face split into a white grin. “Turista americano. Perfecto.” Rising with the gun ready, the man stalked up to Adam. Reaching out to take the glass from him, he drank it all in two swallows with the gun aimed at Adam’s chest. “American, you’re here, you paid for game.”

“Oh, my God….” Adam forced himself to breathe deeply, his eyes leaping to the stylized vine tattoo at the collarbones, the roses dark in the dim room. “Yes… the game. That was… you scared the shit out of me.” Lifting trembling fingers, he touched the tattoo. “I loved this… I wanted to touch it.”

“You saw him? Where?”

“Saw who? I’m sorry, I sort of missed some of the scenario downstairs; that’s really good tequila.” He flinched when the muzzle of the gun was pressed, cold and hard, against his throat. “That doesn’t feel like a toy.”

“You were waiting for him, to fuck him.”

“Uh, someone; you, I think? I’m not that drunk.”

Adam winced when the man whirled at another sound from the window. At least the gun wasn’t touching him anymore, but as he settled into the idea that the fantasy might be more than role play in a brothel, his brain finally caught up to his body. Apparently, he’d guessed right about gunplay being fun.

“They are going to come here if they followed me. You know anything about him, you have to tell me.”

Smiling as tequila and a dizzying erection lent him courage, Adam placed his hands on the man’s back. “Yes, I’ll tell you about him, where he is, everything.” Improvising, he added, “You have to protect me from them, though, or I won’t tell you a damn thing.”

A loud boom sounded downstairs, like a door being broken down. Adam assumed it was a recording, but the production was impressive.

“Mierda. Tenemos que salir. Venido conmigo!”

“Did they tell you I speak… is that Spanish? I don’t….”

“Come with me, stupid tourist! They will kill us both!”

“Oh! Okay, got it, where do we go?” The man went to the window and started to toss a leg over the sill. “Whoa, wait – I’m not jumping out a window!”

“Not jump, slide. Grab the pipes; there are two a foot away.”

Adam approached, his fingers going to the man’s skin like they were magnetized. “Can’t we just – ” he began, looking longingly at the bed. He was grabbed and lifted, thrust bodily through the window. “Fuck!”

“Shut up. Grab the pipe!”

He reached out, grabbed the metal pipe, and hung on for dear life as the man pushed his boots out of the window, his legs swinging out to dangle over the street below. One look down was enough. Squeezing his eyes shut, he just held on tight.

“Move, idiot American,” the man ordered in a stage whisper. “Hand over hand, feet on the wall, move!”

 _Stage whisper; shit this is way over the line for a get-me-laid adventure. Got to chew out someone’s ass for this good – but first, getting down in one piece would be nice…._

Forcing his eyes to open, he found the other pipe and grabbed it, setting his boots to the wall. Slowly, he took a step, and grabbed the pipes a little lower one hand at a time.

He hadn’t gotten more than a few feet down when the pipes rattled and shook with the other man’s weight. Looking up, Adam realized he’d just jumped through the air to grab them. He was still looking up when another boom sounded and angry men popped their heads and their guns out the window, screaming words Adam didn’t understand, but the threat was plain enough.

“Move! Slide!”

When the first shots were fired, Adam slid, a shout of horror torn from his throat. The pipes were smooth but his hands were burning when he stumbled to the street and fell back on his ass. He yelped and scrambled out of the way before the other man landed on him. A second later, he was hauled to his feet and dragged out of the way of what sounded like real bullets pinging around them.

“Run, American! Follow me and stay close!”

Adam pelted down a narrow backstreet after him, vaguely aware that his companion was dark haired and wearing jeans and a black cotton tank shirt. He was also an inch or two shorter, muscular, and moved with the confident grace of a predator running down its prey.

 _Except we’re the prey? Okay, this is nuts… and a long way to go for a fantasy fuck!_ He ran full-speed into the man’s back when he stopped short, but he merely set his legs and didn’t allow Adam’s weight to topple him.

“Quick, this way. Quietly.”

Frowning, Adam shut his mouth on the protest he was about to make and followed. When “this way” turned out to be a bunker-like basement hideout worthy of a Martin Scorsese film, his frown slipped away. There was a rickety table with a lamp glowing dimly on it, and two wooden chairs. A scary looking bathroom waited in the dark outside of the lamplight.

 _Most importantly, there’s a bed; sort of_. It was a twin mattress and box spring on a dirty concrete floor, but after all that excitement, he’d have willingly had sex on a garbage pile.

Turning around, he watched the man as he locked the thick door. His hands were big, the forearms roped with thick veins as he tucked the gun into the back of his jeans again. Adam moved up behind him and slipped his hands around the narrow waist, fingers pressed to amazing abdominal muscles. The bulk of the gun and the curve of his ass felt so good on Adam’s stomach and aching dick.

“Haven’t fucked boys since I was one,” the deep voice rumbled, the Spanish accent making the words exotic and dirtier.

Adam chuckled. “I was planning to top, actually. That was a bit of a shock, but pretty wild; just what I needed maybe.”

He dislodged Adam and turned, but didn’t protest when he moved in close again. “Tell me about Julio.”

Smiling up into narrowed but beautiful black eyes, Adam stifled a sigh. “Do we have to keep up the story? Who’s Julio?”

“My little brother. The one you wanted to fuck.” The glare became more hostile.

“Okay, Julio the brother.” Trying to remember what that woman had said about the game he was paying for, Adam kept coming up empty. “Uh, I saw him with some guys, people like the ones that came after us.”

“Rodrigues, his men?”

“Yes, that was it; but I’ll tell you the rest in the morning.”

The man nodded, his shoulders slumping a little. “We can’t move until morning; they’ll be all over, looking for us.”

“So for now, some creature comforts are in order.”

One big hand gripped his face, making him go still. The fingers were calloused but the hold wasn’t hurting him. “You are… pretty boy.”

“Thanks, but I’m a pretty man, one who prefers not having his face grabbed, unless it’s in bed.”

The grin that lit the smooth-shaved caramel face made his knees feel weak. “Then we will go to the bed.”

“Yes… finally. Wait,” he said, when his companion began pulling his tank shirt off. “Let me do that.” Holding the shirt in one fist, Adam caressed and explored the body before him. It was covered in tattoos and words written in Spanish, glistening with sweat, and the jeans just starting to bulge. “What’s your name?”

“Mateo.”

Hand cupping the back of his neck, Adam slowly pulled him in for a kiss. “I’m Adam,” he whispered over closed lips. As those lips opened and began to respond to his, Adam reached down and opened both of their belts.

Mateo stopped him, but only to grasp the gun and pull it free of the jeans before they loosened. Breaking away from Adam, he went to place it on the floor next to the mattress before kicking off his boots and socks. He drew in a deep breath and then stood there, watching Adam cross the room.

Adam dealt with his footwear somewhat smoothly while pulling a beautiful cut cock out of Mateo’s jeans. Giving it a squeeze, he grinned at the hungry growl the man gave him in return. Adam’s guess was it had been awhile for him, girls or boys.

Fishing out the condoms and lube from his jacket, he tossed them on the mattress and stripped the jacket off. Letting it fall to the floor, the t-shirt and jeans followed it. Pale freckled fingers stroked his cock as a little smile quirked his lips, pleased that his companion stared at it.

Mateo pushed his jeans down and stepped out of them. Grabbing Adam by the hips, he watched him touch himself.

“I love it when I’m not the only commando boy in the room. Going to fight me for the top?” Adam asked, a smirk he hoped was charming stretching his face.

Tattooed biceps flexed, the hands not moving from their grip. “I think we are going to share, American.”

“Adam,” the singer corrected him and moved close to kiss him, trapping their dicks to rub against each other. He fell back with a yelp followed by a chuckle when Mateo pushed him bodily to the mattress on his back. The crinkle of foil under him made him sigh in contentment, and he abruptly knew he didn’t really care who topped first – it was going to be an awesome night.

 _Tomorrow, I might ask if Mateo’s his real name, but I bet it isn’t. Anyway, I can go back to my safe little hotel and put in some serious beach time. Then I can jack off to this memory for the rest of my life…._

Mateo stretched out beside him, grabbed and squeezed Adam’s cock once, and then rolled onto his belly to lean on his forearms. “You fuck good, or I’ll pitch you off and take my turn early.”

Hands going to cup Mateo’s ass and stroke down the backs of the man’s thighs, running down more ink all over, Adam brought his mouth down to the firm and rounded ass a bit faster than he’d first planned. When his fingers got there, he spread cheeks that were as dark as the rest of him and groped for the lube.

Teasing the tight asshole with a slick fingertip, Adam whispered, “I fuck good.” On the man’s next exhaled breath, he pressed the finger in, having to work it through the clenched ring of muscle, but loving the feeling of making it give way. Bringing his tongue into the game, he licked and stroked, pressing in a second finger.

“Don’t….”

Adam paused. “Don’t?”

“Don’t make it too loose; I want to feel it, how you say… rough.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Fingers not inside his bedmate found a foil packet and tore it in his teeth. Pulling free to put it on, he knelt between spread tattooed legs and rolled lubricated latex down over an erection that felt like it might explode.

One hand on Mateo’s lower back, he lined it up. The ache was exquisite, flashes of memory from the evening’s insanity already cutting his breath short. Before he could lose it just by thinking about it, he pushed the head in, bulling it through muscle that hadn’t been opened quite enough for his cock.

“Mierda, sí… cogida, americano loco.”

“Crazy American? Hold on, bitch. Haven’t gotten crazy yet.”

Sliding one knee higher, Adam thrust his hips, driving his cock all the way up in one long gritty push. Lust stabbed into his body, flooding his balls.

He started breathing in a controlled, familiar manner, as if prepping his voice for a show. Grateful that he didn’t have to confess to his former vocal coach that it helped stave off an orgasm while actually heightening his sexual pleasure, he employed the technique now with earnest.

Dragging his cock back, he glanced down and watched it disappear as he thrust it up again. Mateo moved as if he was unable to hold still, muttering things in Spanish that might have been fun dirty bed talk if Adam could understand them.

Adam worked the body under him and his own to make it good. Hands on hips would pull the ass up as he thrust in, or his legs would catch and trap the other man’s legs and hold them immobile, thrusting just with his back and hips. Gathering speed, he let Mateo’s legs go and pushed them wide, yanking slender hips up higher to take his cock as he slammed it in and jerked it back, only to shove it deep again.

Above the man’s head, only one inked arm was stretched out, fist knotting the single thin sheet that was bunched up at the top of the bare mattress. The other arm was down, working under his body, trying to fist his dick. Grasping the elbow, Adam hauled the arm free and twisted it against his back.

“Rough enough for you, crazy Brazilian?”

“Ai, no caber ni un alfiler!”

“Hope you aren’t saying stop, because we never worked out a bilingual safe word.”

“It is packed, stuffed… you are….”

“I know,” Adam answered, grinning. “Who’s your papi.” Holding the wrist and forearm, he used it as a handle and drove into the man’s ass harder. “I’m going to come in your ass while you’re still hard and aching. Then, when I’m done, maybe I’ll let you come. Maybe I’ll help you come.”

The groan that won him sank into his balls and he knew it wouldn’t take much more. Tossing a swivel into his thrusts, he rode it when the man began to buck beneath him. Hard and fast, almost cruel, he stroked his cock deep until the pressure grew, sharpening almost into a delicious pain before it burst. Warm pleasure tore through him from his shuddering cock to his sweating scalp. Fingers that still held the trapped arm tingled at the tips, and he gasped out as it rushed through and dissipated long before his breathing could trip back to normal.

Willing his sated body to move, he drew back and pulled out, poised on his knees to strip off the condom. One quick knot in the end, and he tossed it to the floor. Before Mateo could move beyond flexing a sore arm, Adam shifted and pulled him over to his back, sitting perched on his thighs. He took the man’s hard dick in his hand and squeezed.

“You can still feel me in you, can’t you? Feel your ass stretched, sore and used. I made you buck for it. Imagine what I can do with my hand, my mouth?”

Mateo watched him, his expression bemused but flushed with passion. “You were the one waiting, you work in that place, you are prostitute?”

Adam threw his head back and laughed, barely managing not to let go of the dick in his hand. “No,” he answered as soon as he could. “I’m the paying customer. I’m just… aware of my talents.”

To prove it, he began an overhand, switch, underhand job of jacking that had the man’s eyes rolling back in his head in seconds. Adam enjoyed teasing him, pausing or changing rhythm when he got close. Only when the latest string of Spanish expletives outdid the rest in vigor did he go ahead and let the man blow, angling it to strike the shuddering inked abdominals he’d been admiring.

Tilting over and releasing him, Adam fell to the mattress beside him, both of them sweating and panting. “You’re going to break my heart and tell me this glorified movie set doesn’t have a shower, aren’t you?”

“Tub, no shower. Water’s cold.”

Adam huffed, pouting. Rolling onto his side, he let his fingers trace the vine and roses tattoo that had gotten him into this. It was hard to see details of the artwork in the minimal light. “The thorns; not all of them prick to make a blood drop. Is that deliberate?”

Mateo didn’t look at him. “Each drop is for a loved one lost. Each rose is the one who killed them. The skulls… are for their deaths.”

Something in his voice made Adam swallow the reply he’d been about to make. He hadn’t noticed any skulls on that particular tattoo. Settling on his back again, he sighed. _It’s all story, he’s worked it all out. Maybe he gets bored going through the motions of the scenario and makes up gothic details to stay interested._

Mateo got up and went into the bathroom. Either he didn’t bother to close the door, or maybe there wasn’t one. Adam lay on a bare mattress that reeked of sweat and sex and felt exhaustion creep into every muscle. By the second yawn, he decided he could wait to get back to his hotel to shower.

Grabbing the wadded sheet, he hoped it might be a little clean and straightened it out over his legs and hips. There wasn’t a pillow in sight.

Water ran and splashed into a sink. When it stopped, he listened to his companion take a piss. “Isn’t paid love grand,” he whispered. _I should wash my face…. Fuck it, it’s just eyeliner._

The moment he closed his eyes the images and sensations of their crazed escape from the brothel, or whatever it was, crowded in. A slow smile stretched his lips as he realized, now that he was safe and sated – he’d loved every insane heart-pounding second of it.

When Mateo returned and stretched out beside him, his shoulders-sweeping dark hair slightly damp, Adam pulled him closer and drifted off to sleep with his fingertips on the roses of the tattoo beneath his throat.

***

Adam shouted and sat bolt upright at the sound of gunfire to find the dark room empty around him.

 _That doesn’t sound like a recording. Shit, what is going on out there?_ He threw the sheet off and fumbled for his pants, socks, and boots. They’d slept on the condoms. He swept a palm over the mattress to gather them and stuffed them with the lube into his jeans pockets before he even finished getting them on. His wallet dangled from its chain when he stood to haul the jeans up, striking his thigh as he shoved a foot into a boot at the same time. Hopping a few jouncing steps to keep his balance, he snatched it and stuffed it in his back pocket.

Adam found his t-shirt while hunting for his other boot. Groping for his jacket, he yelped in surprise when the door burst open. Mateo stood there with gun in hand and a freaked look on his face.

“More role playing?” Adam asked, frowning as the tension leaked away in a slump where he sat. The warmth of the room had turned the product in his hair into a sticky mess, and someone had run a herd of goats over his tongue. Odds weren’t good that he’d get coffee anytime soon, either.

“Get up, American, we have to run.”

“Yeah, I am, as soon as I find my jacket; and shave my tongue. Can you get a cab this early? It’s early, right? It’s still kind of dark out there.”

Mateo stalked over and seized Adam’s wrist. “Now, American!”

“What the fuck? Let go of me!” Gasping when the gun swung up to point at his face, he felt an instinctual fear and then remembered it was all a game, the gun was a fake. A momentary spark of real anger faded back to annoyance. “What is going on? Shouldn’t this little game be over now?”

“It is not a game. They are coming, and we can’t let them find us here, we would be trapped!” Lowering the gun, his voice softened. “You know about Julio. We can go to another place and you can tell me.”

Adam was about to tell him to drop the act again when Mateo turned away, hauling him along by his wrist in his wake. “Stop it! Wait! Okay, I’ll go with you, but I need my jacket, my phone!”

Mateo didn’t listen or stop, dragging him out of the bunker room. Adam struggled, fought him, and thought about kicking behind his knee. The thought died when bullets ripped into the street around their feet, ricocheting off of the walls around them.

“Run!”

“Those are real bullets!”

Mateo swung Adam ahead of him by his arm and shoved his back hard. “Run! Up the hill!”

Adam ran. He looked back once and saw Mateo firing back at the men who were chasing them; one of them screamed and fell.

“Holy shit, oh God….” He turned a corner and found himself in a dead end. Footsteps ran up behind him. He turned to warn Mateo that there was no way out and stared in fear at an unknown man holding a gun. “Don’t shoot,” he called out, hands rising to prove he was unarmed. “I’m not a part of… whatever the hell you want.”

“An American? Oh, we can have some fun now.”

Adam backed up until he struck the wall, panting and wincing as his stomach cramped. The early morning air was cool, a light breeze and the cruel laugh of the man with the gun making him shudder.

The thug advanced with a twisted grin on his ugly face. “Pretty boy, huh? Viado?”

“What are you asking? I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Not Spanish, gato; Portuguese. Painted like a woman, you look like viado – faggot.”

“Fuck you!”

The gun snapped up, the muzzle pressed into his cheek. It was warm.

“Gato got sharp tongue; we pull it out, maybe. Then maybe we mess you up until you can’t be gato no more.”

Adam closed his eyes and felt the gun move along his jaw. Shots were still going off around them, and sirens even began to scream in the distance, but Adam’s world had narrowed to the metal mouth of a gun. When it left his face, he didn’t have to wonder where it was pointed next as the man continued to taunt him.

“Should blow you, eh viado? Blow your fucking freak dick off?”

Adam’s eyes snapped open. “Don’t shoot. What do you want? I have money....”

Another voice spoke up behind his attacker, in Portuguese, since it sounded similar. Whatever he said, the man found it funny.

“He say, we should take you with us, make you fuck a woman so you learn better, viado. You might like pussy. Hey, you want to try?”

“No,” Adam said, and swallowed.

The other man spoke again and got another laugh.

“Yeah, maybe,” he answered, a wicked gleam in his eye. “He say I should make you suck my dick. I ain’t no viado, but if you suck it good, maybe I let you go.”

“Shit, please, just let me go….”

The gun swung, striking him a glancing blow on the side of his head. “On your knees, gato.” Another swing and the barrel of the weapon hit the top of his head. “Your knees, broxa; suck it good, or I’ll blow the top of your skull off.”

Adam fell to his knees to avoid another hit with the gun. He lifted his hands to cover his head, making no move to open the filthy man’s pants.

A single shot rang out at close range and Adam’s body jerked, a scream lodged in his throat, but he wasn’t hit. The man above him did scream, dropping his gun and clutching at his back before he fell over onto Adam.

Yelling and scrambling away, his boots kicked at the man. Sitting dazed in shock, he looked up to confront the thug’s partner and saw Mateo instead, gun up, with a grim expression on his handsome young face.

“You… that was you, telling him to do that shit to me….”

Moving quickly, Mateo reached him and offered his hand. “Sorry, American; I speak Portuguese, I hoped he would think I was one of them.”

“What you told him… I can’t….”

“I had to get him to get you down, give me a clear shot.”

“Fuck…. Is he dead?”

“Come on, we go now.”

Adam reached up a shaking hand and let Mateo pull him to his feet. “Where?”

“Come, follow and stay close. Pick up his gun.”

“I’m not touching that damn thing.”

“Pick it up!”

Bending down to grab it with a snarl, he tried to offer it up, but Mateo had turned away.

“Follow.”

Almost dizzy, Adam muttered, “Following.”

Running through streets and back alleys, it all started to blur. Right before Adam was going to beg him to stop so he could throw up, he did stop.

Mateo shoved his gun into the back of his jeans again and grabbed what looked like a section of wooden fence. It moved, and he pushed it out of the way to reveal another tiny alley with a single door in the wall along it.

Adam followed him through the gap and watched as he closed it behind them.

“There, that door. Here is the key.”

Catching it when he tossed it at him, Adam moved down to the door and stuck the key in the lock. “What is this place?”

“Safe place. Hurry.”

Opening the door, he darted inside on the merit of the word “safe”. Mateo pulled the key out and shut and locked the door with a couple of impressive bolts.

The room was dark but it smelled better than the one they’d been sleeping in before. _The place where I left my jacket; my phone…._ His head hurt, from being hit and from a splitting headache blooming behind his eyes. Thinking about the man with the gun, the gun he still held, his stomach lurched. “I’m going to be sick.”

A light snapped on, making him wince. Mateo appeared in front of him and took the gun. “Are you hurt? Shot?”

“Hurt, yeah… not shot. That was my very first pistol-whipping.”

“Bathroom is there.”

Adam saw where he gestured, spun on his heel with a hand over his mouth and dove for the toilet.

***

A toilet flushed and he jerked up, afraid. He was on a bed that had blankets on it, and his head was still pounding. Mateo emerged from the bathroom and sat beside him. Adam couldn’t relax until he noticed that both guns were on a table across the room. The room itself was more of a bunker than the first one, with one door in sight and no windows. A small refrigerator hummed in a corner, and while he didn’t think he’d ever want food again, ice cubes sounded like heaven.

Studying Mateo, he stared at the vine tattoo in the light of the lamp. The roses were not red, like in the photo. They were black, and at least four of them had little glaring skulls worked into the petals.

Lifting his hand, his fingers touched the skulls. “They were red in the photo.”

“Julio’s tattoo matches this, his are red. Tell me American, tell me where you saw him.”

“Oh, shit. Fuck. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m trying to find my little brother. Those men work for a drug dealer. He wanted to work like them, to be feared; but he is too soft… he was unable to kill for them.”

“You aren’t part of the club, the fantasy brothel – that place where you pitched me out of the window.”

“No. I was running from these men, saw the open window.”

“You said, you told me it was a game, I thought you were a part of it!”

“Yes, the games of that place, I said you were playing a game there. Julio worked for them before, pretending to be a dangerous man and sleeping with women and men that wanted a game.”

“I have to get out of here.”

“You have to tell me what you know about my brother.”

“Damn it, I don’t know anything! I thought we were tossing a script back and forth! Those men are really after you and your brother. Fuck!” Dropping his hand from the man’s collarbone, Adam curled forward and put his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I made up what I said about seeing Julio. I thought you were the one I was… supposed to be with. I thought it was part of the game. I’m sorry.”

“American… Adam,” he said.

When Adam didn’t look up, he felt fingers touch his hair. They began searching, not stroking like he thought. Soon enough they found both bumps on his scalp.

“Ow, that hurts.”

“You are not seriously injured.”

“That’s debatable, trust me.” Meeting the other man’s dark eyes reluctantly, Adam sighed. “I really am sorry. This is bullshit, and I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

Mateo rose and stalked a few paces across the tiny room to lean his back against the opposite wall. Arms folded across his chest, he looked down at Adam with a mixture of disbelief and anger on his face.

“You are just ‘wrong place, wrong time’, taking what you want, not caring –”

“Fuck that,” Adam flared. He tried to stand, but his head spun. Pressing his palms to throbbing temples, he exhaled slow, breathed deep. “I’m not like that, damn it, I didn’t know. I guess that woman was supposed to fetch Julio to come up to my room? I picked him out of a photo album she had. In my defense, you look just like him; I mean exactly, except for the color of the roses. It was supposed to be like a dangerous deal, a guy with a gun… and then… yeah, the take what I want part….” Moving one hand to his forehead, he huffed out a breath. “I care, Mateo, I do, and I hope Julio’s okay. If we can get out of this fucking mess, we can get help. Shit, my head hurts.”

“¿Cuáles son yo que va a hacer con usted? Americano absurdo.” When Adam glanced up at him, his tone softened. “We shouldn’t leave now; but when we do, it could be just as dangerous. Your cabs can’t come up here, most streets a car won’t fit. You can go down to where they are.”

“Getting shot at? I might just live here. I could learn to like it.”

“Who are you, American? You are just a tourist?”

“What did you say before? Besides me being an absurd American; you asked me something.”

"A foolish American,” he corrected, a grudging smile starting on his lips. “I asked myself, what to do with you. People here, many people, do not like men like you.”

“You mean gay men.”

His smile growing wider, Mateo uncurled from his defensive posture. “No, tourists.”

Adam watched as Mateo crossed over to the little brown refrigerator. Picking up a square of cloth on top of it, some sort of bandana, he opened the door and made rattling noises inside it.

“Please tell me that’s ice.”

“Tell me first, who you are.”

Adam wilted. Slumping lower, he tried not to fall on his face. “I’m… a singer, I have a band. Here, yeah, I’m a tourist.”

Without warning, Adam was laughing. The insanity and brutality of it all, and the talk with Lane, overwhelmed him. Laughing hurt a lot, though, and it sounded a little hysterical, too, so he struggled to calm down.

“I’m…. I came here to relax,” Adam explained, wiping away tears. “I’m supposed to be offloading stress. I’m lucky I didn’t offload it in my pants this morning.”

Mateo returned to sit beside him and held the bandana full of miniature ice cubes up to the worst of his twin bumps. His other hand cupped Adam’s cheek as he studied his face.

A squirm of embarrassment curled in his tender gut. He probably looked like death, and now his eyeliner was running down his cheeks.

 _I’m a badly done gothic tragedy mask. Without foundation, powder… it would be messed up by now anyway, but still…._ Feeling exposed and vulnerable between one breath and the next, he tried to turn his face away, wishing he could hide the acne scars. _What else would he be staring at?_

“You are, as you say, pretty – very pretty man.”

“You’re a bad liar. I’m a mess.”

Moving the cloth full of ice to the other bump, Mateo shook his head. “You are not like most Americans that come here. You don’t get full of yourself. This is better.”

“You’ve never seen me on stage.”

The hand with the wonderful ice pack slipped away as Mateo leaned in, his lips soft and warm on Adam’s forehead. Despite his headache and sour stomach, the kind touch and kinder words sparked an exhausted desire. Adam tried to shift to have a real kiss, but Mateo leaned back and then stood up.

“I will put this back to stay cold. This place has a shower; you should go, it will help.”

“Yeah.” Running his fingers through his hair out of habit, Adam winced when he struck one of the bumps. “If you’d let me grab my jacket, I could have called in the police.”

“Many of the police are paid by Rodrigues, the man those dogs work for.”

“Perfect. I’m going to shower.” He stood up carefully and kept his movements slow and deliberate.

“If you want water, there are bottles in there, cold.”

“Oh, good, because no offense, but the tap would probably kill me faster than the gun-toting crazy guys.”

“Sleep when you are finished; I have to inspect the weapons.”

Adam remembered not to shake his poor thudding head. “Have fun with that, Dirty Harry.”

After scrubbing himself raw in semi-warm water, Adam couldn’t face getting back into the same sweaty clothes, so he dropped them in a heap on the floor by the bed. After fetching a happily sealed plastic bottle of spring water out of the refrigerator, he made his way back to the bed and crawled gingerly up and between a worn blanket and thin sheet.

His odd companion’s gaze followed him from his seat at the table under the lamp. Adam felt his skin flush at the warm appraisal he saw in those dark eyes.

“You could join me,” the singer whispered. Sitting up to drink the water, he nearly drained the whole thing in a few pulls. Settling on his side, he put the near empty bottle on the floor and tried to ignore his melting bones; focusing instead on the hard on he knew he could manage with just a little more encouragement.

“Sleep, American.” Mateo turned back to the ugly hunks of metal on the table in front of him. One of them was in a lot of pieces, spread out on another colorful bandana.

“I’m fine. Come here.”

“You walk like a wet newborn kid. Sleep will help.”

“Newborns don’t walk…. Oh.” Huffing out a breath, Adam flopped onto his back and then regretted the movement a second later. “Ow. Great job, though – nothing kills a potential boner like being called a goat.” He had a final protest planned, sorting out how to say it, but he fell asleep before he could use it.

***

Warm lips pressed to his bare shoulder as fingers moved through his hair, stroking and combing through the messy black shaggy spikes. Adam groaned and shifted, but remained on his belly, his arms crushing the ragged thin pillow as he buried his face in it. Slow and gentle, the lips kissed his skin again, drifting toward his spine.

The blanket was pulled away from his body and he shivered, though the room was warm. Hands settled, one on the bed between his arm and ribs, the other on his shoulder. He began to sink back into sleep until the tongue licked his spine. Turning his head, his eyes opened, but all he saw was a muscular arm full of fanciful ink.

Then the tongue started a trail of want down his spine, the body over him moving, shifting down. The wet touch was warm at first, and then cooled in the air. It defined him, a hot line down to his ass, where fingers were opening him, exposing him.

“Oooh….”

A quiet voice spoke to him in Spanish, the words beautiful, lyrical. When the words stopped, the tongue returned, lapping at his hole. It pressed a little, and Adam held his breath only to lose the air in a rush when it worked itself in, a wet hot wriggle that made him writhe.

His skull was still tender, but he didn’t care about it anymore as his trapped cock hardened under him.

The tongue left his body but then a finger was pressed to the sensitive skin behind his balls.

At his hips, Mateo muttered, “It is my turn, I think.”

“Fuck, yes… fuck me.” He was jolted out of his sensual stupor a moment later when he heard the man start to spit. “Wait, baby, wait – my jeans, the lube’s in a pocket… and condoms. There,” he said with a waggle of fingers and vague pointing.

With a chuckle, Mateo moved to fetch his pants and rifle through the pockets. “Was going to lick your pink hole from the inside out some more, but if you want me to rush….”

Grinning against the pillow, Adam sighed and relaxed. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Lift your knee.” Fingers pressed behind it, and he let them guide him, guessing it would be worth it.

Mateo’s mouth returned to his ass, a hand reaching under him to squeeze his balls gently and tease his cock.

“Oh, yeah, baby… yes… fuck….”

A finger slipped between his cheeks, slicked with lube. The sharp, clean scent of it made Adam’s cock harden more, almost painfully. The tongue left him, but the finger replaced it, and then another. They didn’t have his finesse, but knew how to gently work that clench of muscle into taking them inside.

Adam caught a breath before it could escape as a high whine of need. Mateo’s fingers stretched him, made him ready, as his other hand stroked Adam’s cock in slow, agonizing slides of skin on skin.

“I can’t… I can’t wait, baby please. Come on, fuck me… I need to feel you, you need to… just… fuck me….”

Mateo’s hands left him all at once, his body shifting. Adam almost spoke once more, to ask why, maybe to beg. Turning his head when he heard foil tear, he held his breath again and drank in the sight of the condom rolling down that pretty dick.

Moving over Adam’s body, those strong fingers spread his legs wide so Mateo could lie between them.

Adam held himself still, forcing himself to breathe. The first push felt like a warning shot, as if the man was waiting to see if Adam was too dizzy or sick after all.

“I won’t break, damn it,” the singer ground out, almost in a hiss.

“No?” came the answer, full of humor and heat. “Let us see if you will.” Mateo pushed again, fast, a thrust that sent his balls slapping against Adam’s ass.

The feel of it, another man’s cock pressing in, thrusting inside his body, filling him up, was all the more exquisite for being the first time in a long time he’d allowed anyone to top him. He wasn’t going to regret it, either; not one ragged, panting moment of it.

“More, deeper….”

Mateo’s smile was wiped away into another kiss on his shoulder.

“Bite it,” Adam urged.

Teeth gripped his flesh, pressed down in a delicious pinch. Adam sucked in his breath, feeling his body shudder as the bite became the shadow of pain.

Over and over, he was filled, the sharp drag back out just as delicious. He wanted to rise, get up on hands and knees; but Mateo’s weight held him down, and that felt amazing, so he gripped the sheets and simply took it.

When his cock was gripped and squeezed again, Mateo’s fingers smearing the slick of precum over the head, he almost cried out in surprise at the intensity of the sensation.

“Up, on your knees,” Mateo ordered, words clipped and brusque. His hands moved to grip Adam’s hips, and then he pulled himself free.

“Shit, yes….”

Adam jerked up onto his hands and knees too fast and with a rolling thump his headache returned, but he ignored it. His ass ached, but all he wanted was to feel that too-full pressure piercing his body again. For a blinding moment, he wanted that invasion of flesh more than his own release.

“Hurry, fuck, come on!”

Mateo’s hand settled on Adam’s back, the other holding his cock to guide it back in, the tip teasing Adam’s hole. The thought of what they must look like made Adam wish for a mirror.

“Fuck, do it! I want it!”

“Pushy Americans,” Mateo responded, but his deep chuckle sounded after the words.

Adam grinned, braced his hands, and shoved himself backward onto that swollen cock right up to the ring of fingers that had been holding it steady for a thrust. The rush of exhaled breath over him made him laugh.

“I take what I want, remember?”

“Dios me ayuda, usted se siente bien….”

Adam gritted his teeth as it pushed deeper again, the angle making it different. That thought made him wish they could try every position he knew before it was over, but his headache wouldn’t let him enjoy it.

When Mateo reached for Adam’s cock again, the singer shook his head and batted the hand away. “Just hold on and fuck, baby, I got this.”

Mateo’s grunt of agreement made him smile again until the intense pleasure wiped it off of his face, his mouth opening in shock.

Letting his head drop, he watched his hand stroke his cock as the thick thighs behind him moved, the man’s heavy balls smacking his ass as each thrust felt like it might split him. Fingers dug into Adam’s hips so hard he would probably bruise, but he wanted that – he wanted it all.

Mateo’s hips snapped again and again, seeming to drive impossibly deeper each time. Adam slowed his hand, wanting it to last. His shoulder ached, and the arm that was propping him up had started to tremble.

Another flood of clipped and passionate Spanish broke out of his companion, and Adam wished he knew what Mateo was saying.

“Come on, harder, making me crazy, baby, need it so bad….”

The man’s hands gripped tighter, his hips snapped once more, and then he was coming. Adam nearly abused his aching cock to get it to blow before it was all over. When it hit him, he came so hard he almost missed catching the slick in his hand.

Mateo set a hand to his back again and slowly pulled free of Adam’s body. The loss of the pressure made Adam bite his lower lip, wanting it to continue.

Once the man moved to his side, Adam slowly lowered himself to his stomach. A groan escaped his lips as his headache kicked in through the hazy afterglow, the pain almost making him dizzy. Even the mattress shifting when Mateo got up made fresh pain bloom and pound behind his eyes.

Adam flinched and then sighed as a cool wet washcloth began to clean him up. Mateo even took his wrist and wiped his hand once Adam remembered to open his fist.

“Turn on your side, face me,” Mateo whispered.

Adam groaned again as he turned, and when the cold bandana full of ice settled gently over his forehead, he drew in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. Beginning to relax, he felt the headache retreat slightly.

“That feels good.”

Mateo didn’t answer, but Adam could feel him watching over him. The ice pack was shifted to his temple before moving to the bump on the side of his head.

“You do this for him, don’t you; I mean – take care of him if he’s hurt… your brother.”

“Taking care, yes; that is what brothers do.”

“I mostly fought with my little brother. It’s better now, I guess.” Adam reached out and set his palm on Mateo’s thigh. “Tell me about Julio. Do you get along?”

“You should sleep. Tomorrow, if you are better, we can plan what to do.”

Adam pressed his lips together a moment in frustration. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about him.”

“Good.” Mateo moved the ice pack to the bump on top of Adam’s head.

“Man of mystery, huh?”

“The less you know of our world the better you will be.”

“I’m not just some asshole who expects the world to be glitter and light because I’d like it to be.”

Grasping Adam’s hand, Mateo placed it on the ice pack and sat up, his back to the singer. He was silent for a long time, but Adam didn’t speak again. He hoped, if given space and peace, that the younger man would open up to him a little. Finally, the singer set his palm against the small of Mateo’s back, his thumb caressing over the tangled ink of another dark tattoo.

When it came, Mateo’s voice was soft, full of sorrow and heavy regret.

“I am not a good man, not a nice man; I kill if I must. Our family is gone; Julio is my family now. I used to work like these dogs that take money from Rodrigues, I worked for a man like him. Julio thought it was… exciting, like a movie. I knew I would be killed in that life and I stopped. I work in a fish market. Julio wanted this exciting life. When Rodrigues ran him off, he went to that… burdel… este lugar en donde compran el sexo.”

Adam moved to sit up behind him, the ice forgotten in his hand as he rested his cheek on Mateo’s back. “The ah… brothel? I don’t understand you, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, this place, where they buy sex.”

Shying away from the twisting guilt in his guts over his part in that, Adam tried to see the building and its female hostess or madam in a different light.

“Those men were chasing you, and they really broke down that door to get into the place. If they knew it was connected with Julio….” Adam shifted through tequila fogged memories of his time in that parlor, as he sat there and looked through the photo album. “That woman sent me upstairs knowing I was asking for Julio. She hesitated when I pointed him out. I remember that…. She hesitated. Why would she do that?”

“This woman, I don’t know these people, American.”

“Adam, baby… call me Adam.” Adam kissed the man’s shoulder absently, and then shivered at a drip of cold water on his thigh. Remembering the ice, he pressed the slushy cloth back against his head. “Anyone in her book, she should have been able to send upstairs; but she had to think about Julio. Maybe he wasn’t there? Or, wait… maybe she was protecting him and had to decide if I was safe, like a legitimate tourist, not someone working for Rodrigues?”

Mateo let out a bitter laugh. “They would not think you worked for those men.”

“Well obviously, since I bathe regularly; usually….”

“Amer – Adam… you talk like a movie. This is not a movie.”

“I know it sounds nuts, but I think I’m on to something. Why would she hesitate? Either she was protecting him, or she wasn’t sure she could get him to show.”

“How does this help me find Julio?”

“How will it help _us_ find him, you mean. I’m going to help you find him.”

“No. You can’t deal with these men.”

“I’m not going to deal with them. I need to get back to where a taxi can pick me up. A taxi dropped me off at that brothel place. You help me get there, and we can ask that woman about Julio. She hesitated; that tells me she knew something.” Adam grinned when Mateo turned his head to look at him. Uncurling his legs, Adam rose up on his knees and pressed against the man’s smooth inked back to kiss his unresponsive lips. “I know, I’m a crazy American; but I’m right about this, I know I am.”

“Even to leave this room, you take a risk.”

“Well I was kidding about learning to like it; I have a world tour to start in a few days.”

“You are singer, big rock star?”

“I’m working on that, yeah. Did you ever watch American Idol?”

Mateo shook his head as he turned, moving Adam backward on the mattress. His calloused hands took the dripping cloth of ice from the singer and pushed him down onto his back.

Adam was about to speak when Mateo held the cloth over his bare stomach and let the cold water drip on his skin. Watching that hand, Adam felt the other one sliding up his thigh. He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly, trying and failing to avoid shuddering at the touch of the cold droplets of water.

“You are strange, American. Why do you care about my brother?”

Adam closed his eyes, taking in the different sensations of hot fingers and cold water. His cock was half awake before the hand closed around it.

“I guess I feel kind of responsible….”

“All you did was pick out a photo.”

Adam gasped, his eyes snapping open, when the cloth full of melting ice was put on his stomach. He reached to grab it, but only struck and held onto Mateo’s forearm as the man opened the cloth and picked out a piece of ice.

“What are you doing?”

“Open your legs,” Mateo told him, his voice a husky command. He put the ice in his mouth for a few seconds, and then held it up to show Adam how smooth it was, cold and dripping.

“Oh my God,” Adam whispered. Without hesitation, he spread his legs and let his bent knees fall wide, shivering from the chill of the small cubes on his stomach. “Baby, yes….”

It felt so cold, his body twitched, but the thought of it ramped up his heartbeat until he was opening his thighs wider. The ice, shaped like a small slice of tangerine, was pressed to the warm skin of his hole. Water dripped down the crack of his ass.

Mateo’s other hand selected another piece, his mouth smoothing it, and this one was placed on his balls, the fingers holding it there when Adam couldn’t stay still. Before the singer could gasp a second time, the ice was pressed inside him, sliding with little resistance into his heat.

“Shit, that’s weird…. It feels so good….” Adam shivered again as another piece was selected, its rough edges smoothed, its slick and dripping cold inserted into his hole.

Letting the melted water drip from his balls, Mateo picked up the cloth and began to methodically slide each smoothed piece inside Adam’s body. Each time, it was a shock and the feel of them melting inside of him slowly began to sharpen his desire into an almost painful lust.

“Fuck, Mateo… that’s so…. Baby, I need….” He cried out when Mateo urged him to close his legs, and the rest of the ice on the cloth was laid on his balls. “Shit, that’s too cold, too much…. Hang on….”

“It will melt.”

Adam stared down the length of his trembling body and watched Mateo produce a foil pack as if from thin air. Tearing it in his teeth, he rolled it over the singer’s leaking dick. Huffing with the effort to stay still, Adam’s hands touched the younger man everywhere as he straddled his hips.

Mateo leaned forward over him. “Open me.”

He didn’t see the lube, and too breaths later didn’t care about it. Spitting on his fingers, he spread Mateo’s cheeks and found his hole, working them in as fast as he could without hurting the man.

The angle was difficult, but his partner didn’t seem too concerned if he was ready enough or not. When he sat up, Adam yanked his fingers free and tried to remember to breathe as Mateo reached for his cock and nearly shoved it into his ass.

Tight heat gripped his cock as cold ice melted on his balls and in his ass. The combination, while it lasted, drove him to buck his hips under the powerful piston movement of Mateo’s thighs.

Adam hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes again, half-drunk with heat, until a drip of slick precum fell on his belly. Opening his eyes, he sucked in a short breath at the sight of the powerful body over his, limned in the dim glow of the lamp.

Mateo’s hands were on his inked thighs, his heavy dick jutting out over Adam’s body. The tip was shining and swollen with lust as it bobbed there, dripping. The soft press and slap of his balls as his body worked itself on and off of Adam’s cock was enough to make him crazy.

“Shit, that’s so good, baby, so fucking good….” Adam reached out and wrapped his fingers around that sweet dick, giving it a gentle squeeze. Mateo’s black eyes went wide, pupils blown, as Adam began to jack him.

The ice was melted away and the chilled cloth that had held it had slipped off of his balls with Mateo’s efforts. Adam was sorry for the loss of that sensation, though the phantom of the feeling lingered inside his body.

Mateo’s thrusts were relentless, his body glistening with sweat. Wanting to touch it, Adam let his fingers explore the muscular abdomen, his nails lightly scraping and smearing the beaded sweat while his other hand worked the man into a frenzy.

Adam’s orgasm shocked him after feeling it build forever, yet deliciously it had never seemed to peak. He arched his back, pushing his hips up to drive his cock deeper as it shuddered inside that vise of heat.

Mateo slumped forward, back bowed, as he came a few moments after. The pearly cum jetted out over Adam’s skin, coating his fingers.

“Holy shit,” Adam gasped out between short gulped breaths.

“I know my… talents, too… Adam.”

“Fuck yeah, you do. Get down here, because if I don’t kiss you in five seconds flat, I might explode.”

Mateo leaned forward, hands on Adam’s shoulders, and let the singer’s cock slide out of his ass. Moving one leg, he collapsed at Adam’s side on his back.

Adam rolled until his body was tilted half on the younger man’s hip and thigh. Grasping Mateo’s throat, Adam leaned down and kissed him, pushing his tongue into his mouth in a demand for more. Mateo finally surrendered a span of minutes later and relaxed in his hold. Deciding that meant he had won, Adam let him up for air.

“The ice…. I’ve never had someone stick ice cubes up my ass.”

Mateo smiled, his breathing still ragged. “I used to do that as a boy. It was hot, and the ice felt good.”

“Oh it was hot,” Adam agreed and laughed.

“Now will you sleep?”

“Yeah…. I don’t think my body’s going to give me a vote after that workout.”

“Sleep as much as you can. I want to leave this place in the heat of the day.”

Sitting up to tug off the condom and tie it, he dropped it on the floor by the bed. “I don’t even know if it’s night or day. How long was I asleep?”

“It is night. You slept through the day. We can’t stay here long, there are few supplies.”

Adam nodded, but tried not to think about leaving, or about those men finding them again.

Warm fingers brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I will wet the cloth….”

“After all that? No way. Lie quiet, baby, relax.

Rising with effort, ignoring the dull roar in his head, Adam managed to find the washcloth at the foot of the bed.

 _For my next trick, I’ll get to the bathroom without running into anything or tripping over my own feet._

Cleaning himself up quickly, Adam rinsed the washcloth and brought it back to the bed. He took his time wiping the mess away from his companion’s perfect skin, and then stumbled back to toss the cloth into the narrow sink. Turning to lean one hip against the cool porcelain, Adam crossed his arms over his chest.

 _I wonder if Lane has people looking for me. I guess if anyone found my phone, they’ve sold it or worse._ Frowning, his shoulders slumped. _Don’t be stupid, no one’s looking. Lane thought I was headed for a club last night. When I turned out to be a no-show this morning for our call, she would assume I met someone._

Adam forced himself to move, to return to his mysterious lover and sleep. Yet lying beside Mateo as the younger man slept, Adam couldn’t relax.

 _What if they are looking for me, and they think something happened?_ Sighing, he closed his eyes. _Something did happen; I just hope I live to tell the tale._

***

A strange subtle sound woke him, but Adam couldn’t place it. For a moment he didn’t remember where he was, and then everything came flooding back. Instinctively reaching for the warm body he’d slept curled against, he groaned when his hands found nothing but an empty bed.

He heard the sound again and opened his eyes to see Mateo standing at the foot of the bed in a pose lifted out of a mobster movie, or one of Tommy Joe’s westerns. One of the guns was in his hands, Mateo’s arms held rigid as he aimed the weapon at the wall behind the table. His jeans were barely hanging onto that taut round ass, his bare feet apart, with a grim expression on his handsome young face.

“I’m pretty sure that wardrobe choice would improve every gangster film in history.”

Mateo turned his head. “I want to show you how to shoot.”

Adam laughed until he realized the man was serious. “Uh, yeah – fuck no.” He got up and went into the tiny bathroom. Stretching and twisting a little to wake up, he stood at the toilet and took a piss.

Mateo’s voice floated to him from across the other room. “You did not enjoy being unarmed and helpless before.”

With a grunt, Adam finished up and returned to sit on the bed. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to shoot people, no matter who they are.”

“Not people; just shoot – to make them keep their heads down.”

“Wouldn’t that just make them shoot at me more?”

Mateo smiled, obviously humoring him. “How is your thick skull?”

Adam felt the bumps on his head gingerly; they were still sore, but the headache was gone. He was surprised when his stomach rumbled, and then remembered that he hadn’t eaten since an early dinner at his hotel, two nights ago. “I’ll live, I think; unless I starve. You mentioned supplies before I passed out yesterday?”

Mateo put the gun on the table, a good thing, but then hitched his pants up and fastened them.

“Don’t get dressed on my account.”

Adam watched him go to the small refrigerator, but he didn’t open it. Picking up a can of something, a can opener and a spoon, Mateo returned to the table and sat down, scooting the other chair out with his toes.

“Come and eat.”

Abruptly feeling weirdly self-conscious, Adam snagged his jeans and yanked them on before joining him at the table. The can’s label had “Quero” and “Ervhilha” printed on it, with a picture of green peas.

Adam watched him open it, stab the spoon in and hold it out to him. His mother would have been proud of him for not saying what he was thinking as he took it. “Uh, thanks.”

They passed the can back and forth and shared the spoon, and Adam had never missed hotels and room service more in his life. His stomach didn’t care, however. It was food. He listened to Mateo talk after he had gestured for the singer to finish off the peas.

“Soon it will be dawn. I hope that Rodrigues’s men have given up searching for us, but they will want to sleep off the night’s hunt as the heat rises. It may not be hot enough to keep them all off the streets, but a few of them I can handle.” Watching Adam scrape the bottom of the can with the spoon, he added, “I need you to help me get us to this burdel, and this woman, alive.”

Adam put the can down, failing to avoid making the spoon rattle inside it. “I won’t shoot anyone, but I could… shoot in the air, maybe.”

Nodding, Mateo got up. “That is good.” He picked up both of the pistols and set them down between them. Touching the brown handle of the one he’d carried, he looked at Adam as if making sure he was paying attention. “This is a .45 caliber Colt. I got it from the man who killed my father.” Fingers moving to touch the other weapon, he smiled at Adam. “This is a 9mm Ruger SR9; its owner you met.”

“A sick fucking pervert,” Adam amended.

“He was a member of the CV, Comando Vermelho; it means Red Command.”

“Now who sounds like a movie?”

“The CV are not as strong as they were; most of the leaders are arrested or dead. Rodrigues is trying to make them strong again, to stand against rival gangs. You do not need to know this to shoot air.”

“Oh good, because if there’s a test later, I’m screwed.” Adam sighed. “How do I shoot the ugly thing?”

Picking up the black gun, the Ruger, Mateo moved the center of the room. “Stand in front of me.”

Adam rose and tried not to think about what he was agreeing to do. As soon as he stood in front of Mateo, the man moved beside him and showed him the weapon.

“Hold it like this.”

Swallowing, Adam took it and tried to copy him. Mateo left him but returned with his pistol, showing him again how to hold it.

“Arms out, like this… yes.” Moving behind him again, Mateo fell silent.

“Am I supposed to kill the refrigerator? It’s been very good to me.”

“Do not pull the trigger now. Your stance is bad.”

“How do I make it good?” Adam almost stumbled when Mateo kicked his foot out farther. “Hey, if I drop this thing and shoot myself in the nuts, the next one’s hitting you.”

“So you could be willing to shoot a man.”

“For my nuts, yes.” Adam’s stomach fluttered with something other than nerves when Mateo stepped close behind him. Hands gripped his biceps, directing his aim, but all Adam could think about was the hardening cock being pressed against his ass. “That’s… distracting.”

“Remember this,” his companion’s voice spoke at his ear. “Take this stance if you must shoot.”

“Ah, but ‘air’ is usually… up, over people’s heads.”

“Bring your arms in, bend the elbows, and aim at the ceiling.” Mateo shifted, pressing into his body. “Move your weapon to the side of your face.”

“Why?” Adam couldn’t care why, but he had to say something to pretend he was paying attention.

“You are not used to the recoil, do not want to hit your face with your own gun.”

“Uh, yeah, okay… good to know. It’s not going to blow me back on my ass if I shoot it, right?”

“This gun has a slim, recoil-reducing glass-filled nylon frame that will help reduce the recoil. It will be easy to control.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I can’t use all the weapons I get; some I turn in, for money.”

“Turn in?”

“To the authorities, the buyback program; they try to get guns off the streets.” Mateo’s body shifted, maybe to put his gun in the back of his waistband. “Others I sell. You must know the worth of a thing to sell it.” Whispering in Adam’s ear, he asked, “You know about that, American.”

Adam’s breath caught. He had to force himself to focus and answer. “Know about what?”

Mateo’s hands came up to grip his hips, his body moving to grind his erection into the singer’s ass. “The worth of what you want to sell.”

“I’m not for sale, but keep doing that baby, and we can work something out.”

“What will you do if a man is behind you and tries to take your weapon?”

“I got a death grip on this ugly piece of metal,” Adam warned and then yelped when Mateo’s hands moved and grabbed his arms.

The singer was shoved from behind, propelled against the wall by the door. Wrists seized in one hand, the gun reflexively clutched in pinioned hands, Adam was pressed into the wall by Mateo’s body.

“So you do,” the man’s husky whisper admitted at his ear.

“Are we done with the gangster lessons?” Adam asked, fighting through a heady mix of shock, fear, and heat to speak at all. “If we are, I’d like to fuck now.”

Another shift to one side of the body that pinned him, and he felt the cool metal of Mateo’s gun touch his back; it moved slowly, caressing his abruptly shuddering bare skin.

“Mateo….” Adam warned again, afraid of the thing. His cock betrayed him, though – it was as hard as it had been in the brothel when he’d thought they were playing a game.

“If I were that filthy CV killer, how would you get away?”

Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to get away now, not with that heavy dick grinding against his hip. Mateo’s pistol drew a line through the sweat on Adam’s back to push into the waistband of his jeans. When the cold metal slid into the crack of his ass, only the denim waistband preventing it from seeking his hole, the singer gasped and swallowed hard as his cock twitched in his jeans.

“Is this a new game?” He twisted his head a little and caught the broad grin on Mateo’s face.

“I’m going to fuck you, unless you stop me. How would you get away?”

The unspoken rules of this prospective game were clear. If he escaped this hold, he could call the shots. Lust joined adrenaline, but the feel of the hard weapon in his hands made him hesitate, to say nothing of the gun shoved down his pants.

“I don’t want to risk dropping the gun – it might go off.”

Mateo’s mouth brushed over his skin, teeth nipping one shoulder blade. “No se cargan.”

“What does that – ?”

“They are not loaded, American.”

Sucking in his breath, Adam felt the burn of embarrassment flush the back of his neck, annoyance running under it. When Mateo’s dick pressed into his hip again, he relaxed, almost going boneless in surrender.

Adam closed his eyes, felt the hand release his wrists and take the weapon from him. Mateo leaned back, twisted, and by the sound of two solid thumps, he tossed both guns, one by one, onto the narrow bed a few feet away. Taking a deep, slow breath, Adam opened his eyes and waited for the body behind him to start to twist back.

Before Mateo straightened, Adam slapped his palms to the wall and pushed off of it, knocking Mateo off balance. Whirling in a tight spin, he snatched the man’s pinwheeling hands and yanked him forward, keeping him off balance. When he struck Adam’s body, the singer pivoted, pulling the younger man around until their bodies smacked against the wall again, their positions reversed.

Adam laughed and shoved his bulging crotch into the other man’s ass. “I’ve also spent a lot of time dancing in musicals; makes a man quick and limber.”

Mateo set his forearms against the wall and chuckled. “So – you win the game.”

Wasting no time on witty comebacks, Adam dug in his jeans pockets and almost cursed before he found a foil pack. Holding it in his teeth, he reached around to open the man’s jeans and shove them out of his way. He reared back enough to free his cock, his jeans hanging off of his ass as his chest held Mateo in place.

“Pricey lube fuck knows where…. You’re teaching me all sorts of bad, nasty habits,” Adam groused.

He tore the foil with his teeth and managed to roll the condom down without fumbling with it. Spitting to slick his fingers, he slid in two right off the bat. Mateo’s grunt was followed by a long groan as Adam worked them in and out of his tight hole, stretching it as carefully as their urgent want would allow.

Leaning in to kiss Mateo’s shoulder, he whispered heated words so softly he wasn’t sure the man could hear them. All he heard in response was lyrical Spanish phrases he couldn’t understand; yet their bodies, their need for release, became a language shared in groans and hissing intakes of breath.

Adam lined up and pushed in, rough and fast, loving the feel of the tight hole giving way to his cock. Before Mateo could lower his hands to his own dick, Adam caught his wrists and pinned them to the wall over his head in one hand.

“You can come when I say, baby; I’m taking what I want from you first.”

Using his hips, legs, and back, Adam thrust up into the man’s body again and again without a pause. Blood hot and reckless in his veins, he felt vicious, primal, and drove into that tight grip of sensitive flesh with nothing more than the hunger to fill it with his seed.

The momentary regret of the condom made him growl, his teeth finding bronzed skin over the bunched muscles at the man’s shoulder. Biting down hard, he sucked at the flesh as if sucking down the moan that broke the rhythmic noises of skin slapping against skin.

“Adam…. Por favor, necesito… No puedo…”

“Hush, you’re mine. Take it, baby… you can take it….”

Heat washed through him as pleasure built up, ready to burst. The delicious friction felt insanely good, the brutal thrusts that hadn’t stopped once threatening to sucker punch his balls between one groan of the body under him and the next.

Teeth still gripping the other man’s shoulder, he bit down harder when he came, the orgasm a shock that ripped through him, turning his aching legs and back to jelly. Riding it out, he coaxed his hips into another snapping short thrust deep inside, growling into the man’s flesh held in his teeth.

At the end, legs trembling, Adam felt drunk. A vague worry that he’d been too rough leaked into his chaotic thoughts. His teeth released marked and reddened flesh as the man under him slowly ceased to be “the body” and became Mateo once more.

“Baby,” he whispered, lips kissing the bite marks. “Are you okay, baby?” He let Mateo’s wrists go and set his hands on his companion’s shoulders to push his body back, allowing his softening cock to slide free. Stumbling back, Adam swayed on his feet, trying not to let his jeans trip him.

Mateo turned, lurched away from the wall and grabbed him in a desperate and clumsy embrace. Adam tried to set his feet, keep his balance, but as their mouths met and tore at each other hungrily, he toppled.

Narrowly missing falling on the guns, they landed diagonally on the bed. When Mateo let go of his mouth to kiss and suck at his throat, his erection digging into Adam’s thigh, a joyous laugh burst from Adam.

Hauling him up to kiss him again, Adam pulled Mateo over onto his belly. Before the man could protest, Adam drew his tongue down his spine and stuffed it into his ass in one long motion. Rimming him with dedicated skill for a few minutes, Adam paused, perched on one hip.

“Give me half a second to ditch this rubber, baby, and I’ll take care of you so good….”

Pulling it off and tying it, he leaned over the guns to toss it on the floor. His fingers brushed over the barrel of the Colt, feeling the rounded leading edge of the sight at the end. Mouth curling in a wicked smirk as he spotted the lube, Adam picked up the weapon and laid it on the small of Mateo’s back.

“They’re not loaded, right?”

“No, not loaded. Adam, please….”

Retrieving the lube, he shushed him softly. “Don’t worry baby, it’ll be good. Raise up for me, on your knees, okay? Let me at that dick….”

Mateo grabbed the pillow and shoved it in a wad under his face and chest, rising on his knees to lift his ass in the air. The gun slipped down his slick back to rest under his shoulder blades. His knees slid, spreading open, letting his balls and heavy cock hang free. Mateo groaned with need when Adam slipped two lubed fingers into him. They sank to the knuckle without any resistance.

“Hold still for me, baby,” Adam whispered, smiling at the string of reverent Spanish that fell from the man’s lips as the gun was picked up off of his back. “You wanted to do this to me, didn’t you? I have this theory – we like to do to others what we want done to us; call it the golden rule of kink.”

On his knees behind the man’s ass, Adam used his fingers to slick the barrel. Careful of the sight, he pushed two fingers in with the metal until it sank in past the ring of muscle. The barrel wasn’t long, but the feel of it inside as Adam withdrew his fingers must have been amazing.

Reaching underneath to grip Mateo’s dick in his free hand, Adam grinned. “Shotgunning with a pistol is a new one for me. You like it, baby?” Fingers smearing the string of precum dripping from the cockhead, he squeezed it once and then began to jack it. His other hand held the pistol’s grip, finger off the trigger, and worked the barrel back and forth inside that sweet hole.

Mateo tried and failed to stay still, his body writhing. Adam let go of the man’s cock and leaned over his hip. Using his weight partly to help hold Mateo still, Adam reached around his shaking thigh to jack that thick cock again. Finding his rhythm with the pistol in Mateo’s ass, he pumped it in like he had his dick before.

“Sí, sí, más duro….”

“Baby, I don’t know what you’re saying, but you look so good. Come for me, I want to feel it, want to see you blow.”

Leaning lower over Mateo so he could see, managing to keep shoving the short barrel in and nearly out of his ass, Adam jacked him hard. His wrist twisted each time his hand slid up to the head. Slicked with precum, the sight of that beautiful cock working through his fist made Adam wish he could take the gun out and fuck him again.

He was so busy making everything work in rhythm, he nearly missed it when the muscles of Mateo’s body telegraphed that he was going to come. Dropping his chin to his chest, he focused on pushing the rigid shaft almost brutally through his slick grip.

“Yes, baby, come on… give it to me; so fucking beautiful, fuck my fist, come on….”

With a ragged cry, Mateo began to shoot and Adam barely got his hand back up to the head in time to catch it. Some of it dripped down his wrist, and he watched it, mesmerized.

For a few moments, neither of them moved, and then Mateo began to collapse with a guttural groan. A hiss of pain followed as the movement almost yanked the pistol roughly out of his ass.

“Oh, shit… hang on, careful.” Not worrying anymore about the mess he was making, Adam worked a pair of fingers milky white with cum into Mateo’s ass around the barrel and placed a fingertip over the sight inside, guiding it out as gently as he could. “Okay, it’s out.”

Adam settled back on his heels, annoyed briefly by the tangle of his jeans caught mid-thigh. He held the gun up and felt his cock give a lazy twitch at the sight of the shiny dark metal, dripping with lube.

“Was it good, baby? Felt good to be fucked by this thing?” Adam asked in a reverent whisper, though his eyes never left the slicked weapon.

“Sí, se siente bien….”

“Well I think that was a thumbs up.” Almost reluctantly setting the gun aside on the bed, Adam lay down half draped over Mateo. “We have time to nap a little?” he asked, even as his hand moved to caress the man’s ass, a finger pushing between the cheeks to tease his hole.

“You are… very busy….”

Adam laughed, delighted. “Oh, baby, if I can work one more fuck out of you before we go let thugs shoot at us, I’m taking it.” Glancing over at the gun, he bit his bottom lip and let it go on a sucked in breath. “Too bad that barrel’s so short… and you have to watch out for the sight.”

Mateo glanced back at him and smirked, but then dropped his head with a groan, eyes closed.

Adam picked up both guns and set them over Mateo’s head before he moved to stretch out at his side. “We have to be careful, okay? You have to be careful. I know you’re worried about your brother, but don’t let it make you reckless.” He sighed when he heard the other man begin to snore softly. Setting one hand on his back, he placed a gentle kiss on one bronze shoulder. “Fuck, baby, you’re too pretty to die.”

***

Adam woke on his back, feeling more rested than he had since the whole insane mess he’d gotten himself into had started. One arm over his eyes to shield them from the lamp light Mateo had never turned off, he peeked out from under it to see the Brazilian at the table cleaning the guns.

Watching him load them both in silence for a moment, Adam sighed as nerves began to twist his guts. “We have to go soon, don’t we? Do I have time to shower?”

“We go now; better to be dirty than dead.”

“I’d rather die clean, but we’re not going to. Die, I mean. We’re the good guys.”

“I hope someone has told Rodrigues’s men this.”

Struggling to sit up, Adam located his clothes and boots and started to dress, trying not to be too creeped out about putting dirty clothes on a body in bad need of a scrub. He found the small lube bottle and one lonely condom and stuffed them in his jeans.

When he was dressed, he patted his pockets out of habit to make sure he had his phone; remembering its loss made him feel even more nervous.

“If anyone found my phone, people might be looking for me.”

“Up here, anyone that found it would sell it.”

Frowning, Adam went to the table. He almost came up behind Mateo to hug and maybe kiss him, but seeing him load the pistols had changed things somehow. He hadn’t forgotten seeing the man shoot people before; he’d probably killed them.

He pulled out the chair next to him and sat down heavily on it instead. Assuming the sealed bottle of water on the table was for him, he cracked it open and began to suck it down greedily.

Watching Mateo finish with the weapons, Adam couldn’t bring himself to speak. They had fucked each other stupid in this tiny room. Mateo had taken care of him, slept at his side, and kissed him like they meant something to each other.

 _It’s all just danger-heightened lust; two people thrown together…._ With a loud scraping noise, his chair was picked up in front and shifted, pulled forward. “Hey,” Adam protested, grabbing at the table edge in surprise. He set the bottle down carefully, not wanting to spill it.

“You are very quiet for an American that never shuts up.”

Meeting those black eyes, bright with amusement, Adam melted just a little. “Nervous, that’s all.” When warm bronzed hands settled on his knees, Adam covered them instinctively with his pale, freckled hands.

“This place is not very far away from here. If they only come at us a few at a time, I will handle them. Save your bullets unless we are outnumbered.”

“Save my bullets? I’m not crazy mafia material; I hope I have all of ‘my bullets’ left after we get out of this mess.”

“I hope to get Julio out of ‘this mess’, and me. I want him to work with me.”

Adam thought about Neil, how he’d feel if his little brother’s life was in danger. Sure, they fought a lot as kids, but lately they had gotten closer, since Idol. He leaned in and whispered, “We’ll find him and get him out safe.”

“Because we are the ‘good guys’?” Mateo asked, his expression darkening.

“No, because you’re good at this crazy gunfight shit. All we have to do is find Julio, and I bet that woman at the brothel is hiding him.”

“We get there, I will find him if he is there. I think maybe there is a way you can help, but after, you have to go, get your taxi, and go.”

“I knew it,” Adam said with a wink, “you’re sick of me; you want to get back to fucking girls.”

Adam was shocked when Mateo kissed him, his hands slipping out from under Adam’s to hold his face, to make him take a deeper, more insistent kiss. The passion of it, the sincere need, stole his breath and yanked dangerously on heartstrings.

A second before he tried to turn the kiss into something more, Mateo pulled away and stood, looking down at him. The wistful expression on his face threatened to wound Adam’s wildly beating heart.

“I don’t like fucking girls,” he answered. “It’s time to go, American.”

Adam watched in a daze as he picked up the weapons. He took the Ruger when it was handed to him, but wasn’t certain he could trust his legs just yet.

To cover the emotions tripping over themselves in every vein, he protested, “How do I carry it? I’m not putting it down my jeans like you do. I’d look weird with three butt cheeks; got to think of the fans.”

“I do not want you to fumble with it if you need it to protect yourself. Here, wear this. Hold the pistol under it at your side.”

Adam awkwardly caught the short-sleeved button up black shirt Mateo tossed at his chest. Setting the gun down on the table, he pulled it on, mystified on where he’d plucked it from. “Is this a souvenir from the last guy you mistakenly rescued from murderous gangsters?”

“No; it was Julio’s.” Mateo went to the door. “I will return in a moment, be ready to follow.”

“Okay, yeah.” The moment Mateo was out of sight, Adam’s guts twisted in fear. _Shit, this is insane. Someone, if you found my phone; please send people to look for me…._ He chugged down the rest of the water and then went to the door and stood beside it, tucking the Ruger under the shirt, under his left arm. _Lane, I swear, I’ll go to Singapore without a peep, can’t wait, just want to live to see it…._

Adam startled when the door popped open, but obeyed Mateo’s sharp whisper to follow close without a thought. The moment they were outside of the hidden alley and in the maze of narrow streets again, all of them at a steep slant, Adam was consumed with trying to look in all directions at once.

“This way, down. If we get separated, just keep going down; fast.”

“Down, got it, but don’t fucking lose me, damn it.”

They went down, at a trot, Mateo taking them through zigzag streets that Adam would have had no hope of navigating alone. Adam’s heart had just begun to slow down when the first bullet ripped through a building they had just passed.

“Go, run,” Mateo ordered, giving Adam a shove. “Down, take the next two left turns; I will find you there.”

“But I –”

“Go!”

Another shot made the decision for him. Adam almost stumbled as he turned away and ran the way Mateo had pointed.

“Left, okay… oh shit, oh shit, where is he?”

Hovels and rusted bikes were everywhere. Dogs barked, and he even tripped over a squawking chicken. People were scarce, but they were there; most of them hiding, half-heartedly peering out at the street as if only mildly curious who could be trying to kill who.

At the sound of the next shot, Adam skidded to a stop before the second left turn. Looking back, he was shocked to see a man with a gun come creeping out of an alley he had just run past. The man didn’t look in his direction, using a collection of ratty wooden crates as cover. He lifted his gun and aimed.

Gaze snapping up to what he was pointing the weapon at, Adam was horrified to see Mateo coming down in his wake. His friend couldn’t see the other man from that angle. Trembling, Adam pulled the Ruger out from under his shirt.

 _Oh my God, please… I don’t want to hit you; but if I aim over your head, I could hit Mateo…._

Adam didn’t pause, he didn’t think about it. The memory of Mateo kicking his foot out, showing him how, the feel of that dick against his ass as he learned how to stand and shoot flooded over him and he just did it. One palm under his other hand, cushioning the butt of the gun, he aimed at the boxes next to the man’s hip and squeezed the trigger.

The noise tore his world apart. The recoil made the pistol jump in his hands, but he managed to keep his grip on it, his stance helping him stay on his feet.

Wooden boxes were blown out of their precarious stack, one of them torn apart by the bullet. The man hiding behind them turned and saw Adam. He fired once at the singer, but then only Mateo’s Colt could be heard as Adam pelted around the corner to the left.

Putting his back to a wall, holding the Ruger at the side of his face as he’d been taught, Adam looked down to see a hole blown through the bottom of the open shirt he had borrowed. Knees weak at the sight of it, he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

 _Didn’t hit me, I’m not hurt; but I’ll never find this damn building without Mateo…._

“Hey, viado!”

“Fuck.” Adam’s eyes snapped open, his hands moving the Ruger down and ready before he even thought about it. The man that had insulted him held an ugly black gun. Its barrel was long and thick, odd looking, like it didn’t belong on the slender weapon. It looked nothing like the gun he held, or Mateo’s Colt. “Fuck off, asshole; I don’t want to kill you, so just leave.”

“Queima-rosca, yeah… you shot at my friend. You don’t want to kill? Okay. How about die? You want to die, viado?” With a grin that displayed rotting teeth, he advanced.

“Are you stupid? Stop!”

“You won’t shoot; could have killed, shot boxes instead of kill. Got to kill me to stop me, viado.”

Heart pounding, Adam swallowed hard. “I don’t have to kill you. A bullet in the leg would stop you.”

“Okay, gato; shoot my leg. I blow your fucking queima-rosca head off right after.”

Hands shaking, Adam’s finger caressed the trigger. Shots were being fired around the corner. “They’ll hear you, they’ll hear the shots.”

“They hear yours, viado. This pretty, they won’t hear. They’ll hear you scream when you die in your own shit.”

“Mateo,” Adam whispered. _I don’t want to kill anyone._

Cement blew up next to Adam’s head, showering him with gray dust, before he even realized the man had fired his weapon.

“Next one goes in your eye. Drop the gun, viado.”

Adam didn’t drop it, but the man kept advancing. In the next ragged breath, he snatched the Ruger away and dropped it behind him.

A wave of stench filled Adam’s nose when the man pressed in close. “You’re helping that dirty Spanish cachorro.” The thick silencer was pressed into his cheek. “Open your mouth, viado. Suck my metal cock.”

Adam clenched his teeth and shook his head. Then he felt something sharp prick into his jeans at his crotch.

“Feel that? My blade can turn you into a woman if you don’t open… your… filthy fucking mouth.”

Shuddering, his mind screaming, he opened his mouth. The metal on his tongue tasted sharp, alien.

“Suck it.”

The weapon was pushed in deeper, almost choking him. He felt the blade prick again, felt a sharp sting as the needle point stung his dick inside the denim. Blinking through tears, he tried to suck the thick metal rod.

“Yes, like that. Going to cut off your filthy penis, viado. You move, you fight, you lose your fucking pretty head. Okay?”

Trying to think, trying not to be sick, Adam’s eyes looked away. Shocked at the sight of Mateo slipping up behind, it was all he could do to freeze and not give his friend away. He tried to turn his head, but the man used the metal in his mouth to stop him.

The disgusting man was tall, half a foot taller than Adam. When he realized what Mateo would do, he slowly closed his eyes and hoped the ugly man wouldn’t pull the trigger first.

Adam’s body jerked when the shot was fired, thrashed when the tip of the rod in his mouth was shoved into the top of his throat, cutting off his air. Something warm burst over him, splattering over his face. His hands shoved at the man’s arm, yanking the weapon out of his mouth. He rubbed madly at his face before he opened his eyes, looking through gummed lashes to see the man fall on his back, an ugly hole blown outward in his head, the forehead simply gone.

Looking away fast, he saw a serrated narrow knife caught in the denim of his crotch. Pulling it free, he threw it on the man’s chest.

“Adam! Adam, are you hurt?” Mateo grasped his shoulder in one hand, hard enough to bruise.

Adam shook his head. His legs were jelly. He wanted to throw up, and he had that man’s blood on his face, caking in his eyelashes.

Before he could sink down, Mateo was handing him the Ruger. He snatched it, held it near his chest, and in that moment, he could have killed anyone who threatened him.

“Talk, damn American. Adam!”

The singer looked at Mateo, watched as he picked up the ugly black gun. The taste of it in his mouth made his stomach turn over.

“You have to run, come on, this is our only chance. The man you shot at to warn me, he got away and the shots will bring others. Come with me, follow now!”

Using his belt to hang the other weapon from his hip, Mateo held his Colt in one hand and grabbed Adam’s wrist in the other. When he tugged, Adam followed, holding the Ruger against his chest.

They ran until Adam couldn’t breathe anymore. When Mateo finally let him collapse, he looked up and around in fear to find himself in a dim narrow alley. Out in the sun across a wider street, far less ominous in the harsh light of midday, was a large black building – the brothel.

“Give me the gun,” Mateo whispered. “They won’t let you in if you have it.”

Adam let him take it. He heard water trickling somewhere close and managed not to flinch when Mateo pressed a damp cotton cloth to his cheek. Realizing he was wiping blood off of his face, the singer sat perfectly still and tried not to think at all.

“I am sorry, Adam,” Mateo was muttering as he wiped his face with the cloth. “There were four of them, I barely got to you.”

“I couldn’t shoot him,” Adam said, or tried to; it came out as a rough croak.

“Here, take the bandana, clean your eyes.”

His hand shook when he took it, wiping his eyelashes and lids. When he was done, he leaned over and retched, but didn’t have much to throw up.

“If you want to stop now, I understand. Any shop below this street can call a taxi.”

“Do you need my help?”

“You’ve risked enough –”

“Damn it,” he croaked, and swallowed. “Do you need my help getting in there, to find Julio?”

Bowing his head, Mateo sighed. “Yes. If you say you came back for another game, they might let you in. Tell this woman you want Julio, you want the same room.”

“She might not believe me,” Adam whispered. “I went out the window last time, remember?”

“This woman won’t care, she already had your money, yes?”

“Yeah…. I have some money still, but not that much.”

“Tell her, because of the last time when gunmen came, you will pay her after.”

“Okay, yeah… yes.”

“Here, drink this.”

“Where did you get a flask?”

“Off a dead man.”

Adam hesitated, but Mateo pressed the metal flask into his hand. Throat raw, the singer unscrewed the cap in desperation. The sharp smell of whiskey hit his nose, burning away the stench of the man that had assaulted him. It burned his throat, too, but it felt strangely good, almost cleansing.

Passing it back, he asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I will enter that room as I did before, through the window. When I am in, I will search for Julio. If she brings him to you, wait in the room together and I will meet you there.”

Adam nodded. Frowning, he asked, “What does ‘gato’ mean?”

“Handsome man.”

“They don’t say it like a compliment.”

“It is an insult for men who love men, like… saying ‘pretty boy’.”

“And ‘queima-rosca’?”

“Doughnut burner.”

“What the fuck –”

“Rosca, doughnut, it is obscene for ass, for anus. It burns from being fucked. He called you a queer, a ‘bottom’.”

“I almost wish I’d shot him.”

Mateo leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “I am glad I did it first. You are... soft –”

“The hell I am –”

“Soft, like… kind. You should not have to see, or be touched, by such ugliness.”

“I don’t know which was worse, the gun or the knife. Oh, shit, the knife!” He jerked up and tore at his belt and zipper, reaching in to free his dick. The sight of the red scratch and tiny bead of blood smeared on it nearly made him retch again.

Mateo’s warm hand took it out of his grip, the dark fingers caressing it a moment. Retrieving the bandana crumpled on Adam’s thigh, he used it to wipe the blood away from the scratch.

“Now, put that monstrous thing away, we have much to do.” Smiling at him, Mateo promised, “I’ll make this up to it later, if we get a chance.”

***

Adam could feel Mateo’s intent gaze on his back as he walked out of the shelter of the alley and crossed the wide street. He listened intently to the sound of the man’s soft footsteps as he crossed behind him, turning to disappear from sight at the side of the building.

They had taken more water from the broken pipe Mateo had found and cleaned Adam up as well as they could. He’d used trembling fingers to force his stiff and grubby hair into some semblance of a spiky style. Mateo had helped brush concrete dust off of his clothes, and that had led to a few desperate, crazy kisses.

Touching two fingertips to his lips as he approached the door, Adam used the memory of those kisses to give him courage.

He didn’t have the code anymore, the paper had been in his jacket, but Mateo had said they would recognize him. Adam doubted that would help right up to the moment the door opened after he rang the doorbell twice.

It was the same woman. When she smiled at him, Adam remembered to breathe. He was probably still in shock, and felt like he was moving and speaking through a dream. The same room, the same boy, Julio, yes that was the one; he stayed firm, relying on ingrained acting skills more than anything else.

“There are many boys,” she began to hedge.

“Last time, men came and shot their guns at me; I had to jump out a window and shinny down pipes to escape! I didn’t call the police, but I could have.”

“No, no, there is no need. You are a guest now.”

Adam started to reach for his wallet, but she shook her head.

“No need,” she repeated. “Come, I will take you up to the room.”

At the door of the room, Adam paused. Fingers gripping her shoulder, he stepped in close. “I’ve seen Julio’s brother. Tell him we need to talk to him, please.”

He released her when she stepped back. She studied him, seemed to make a decision, and nodded. “I will send Julio up to you.”

Adam couldn’t begin to relax clenched muscles until the closed door was at his back. He waited until he heard the woman go down the stairs, and then cautiously looked around, but the room was in dark shadows. Only the area directly in front of the window was letting any sunlight in – the open window.

“Mateo?” Adam called in a stage whisper.

Wishing he had the Ruger, he stepped into the room and aimed for the window. Long before he got there, something moved behind him. He turned, saw the silhouette of a man, and nearly shouted in fear before a warm hand was pressed over his mouth. He felt the hardness of an erection dig into his hip, and then the man was pushing him backward toward the bed.

Fear warred with hope until a shift of the sunlight as they passed it flashed on a vine tattoo and roses twining around a prominent collarbone.

 _Mateo, oh my God…._ Adam didn’t protest as he was spun and pushed down on his belly onto the bed. “This has got to be really bad timing for making it up to me, but damn it, I want it!”

His friend reached under him with one hand and struggled to open his belt. Adam lifted his hips and tried to help. When his pants were opened and roughly yanked down off of his ass, he gasped. Turning his head, a bemused smile on his lips, he saw the particular shape of the long and ugly weapon held in one hand and froze.

“That’s not funny, baby. Drop that ugly thing and fuck me, okay?”

Without answering him, Mateo climbed up onto the bed and sat on Adam’s legs.

“Mateo, you’re scaring me a little, baby, talk to me.” Adam gasped when slick fingers parted his cheeks and pressed at his hole. “Oh, shit… fuck, yes… never mind, I don’t care. Do it, fuck me.”

Yet he didn’t hear another zipper. The snap of a lube bottle, the soft sound of it being thrown onto the bed over his head, and then silence – it was unnerving; yet his dick still twitched, wanting this man very much.

Adam let his head drop, resting his forehead on his wrists. “Come on, baby… do it slow.”

Fingers at his hole pressed and entered, and then something else was there. The fingers left his body and the shock of a thick metal rod entered him.

“Shit, what is that, fuck! Stop it!”

“Shut up, American.”

Adam froze even as his body clenched in pain. He hadn’t been ready, it was too big, unyielding, brutal, and it hurt. “Oh, God… you’re not Mateo.”

“How do you know him? Are you hunting him, hunting me?”

“Julio….”

“Answer me, or I’ll pull the trigger and send a bullet through your fucking ass.”

“Stop this, please…. Julio, I’m with your brother. I came here to get you, with him.” The metal was pushed, and it was all he could do not to cry out. “Fuck, it hurts! Please stop….”

“My brother is coming back here, American. He will say if you are telling the truth. Until then, we can play. You paid for me, yes?”

Adam gasped as the thing was pulled back, but not out. “Stop it, I’m telling the truth. Fuck, fuck you; I came here to help you!”

“You will be ready quick, if you fucked my brother.”

Gritting his teeth, Adam listened for the door, the hall outside. The object, the silencer, pushed in again, more slowly, opening him up. When it did it again, and again, he realized to his horror that it was making him hard.

“The minute you let me up, I’m going to beat the fucking shit out of you….”

“Not a reason to let you, then.”

“He told you about me, he must have. God, stop it….” He tried to fight it, to fight himself, but as it pulled back and was pushed up again, it sparked something deep in his gut, in his balls, and in his slowly leaking cock.

“You Americans who come to this place are all the same. You want it. Watch your back arch, you bitch, you want it.”

“No, I wanted… I want… him.”

“Look at you, like a bitch in heat. Going to fuck you like this, fuck you till you blow.”

Adam’s arms couldn’t bend back enough to let his hands grab anything. Reaching up, he could grasp the wooden rails of the headboard, but as he tried to pull himself up, he couldn’t move the weight on his legs. When he tried again, he realized that all he was doing was giving his dick the friction it wanted.

Feeling the thick metal rod push deeper inside his body, the pressure blooming into pain, he squeezed his eyes shut and felt wetness slip down his cheeks. It had opened him so wide, and on the next pull down and nearly out, it was angled to rub his prostate on the push back in. Letting the headboard go, Adam buried his face in his arms and tried not to feel any of it.

His body betrayed him soon after, as his balls contracted, the shameful orgasm bursting through him to wet his shirt, his jeans, and the coverlet under him. The shock of it stole his breath.

When the door burst open and a stream of outraged Spanish erupted, Adam bit his wrist to stop himself from screaming.

The body that pinned his legs was struck off of him to the floor. As the hand was torn away from the gun in his ass, it was yanked, and his teeth broke skin as stars of pain burst behind eyes shut tight.

Then Mateo was beside him. “Adam, I am sorry, God….” The rest was angry Spanish tossed at his attacker, the man he’d come here to save.

Flushed and nauseous, Adam’s mind tried to disconnect from the fullness in his body, the pressure-pain a sharp ache now that the unwanted pleasure was finished with him. Horrified to be seen that way, used and hurt, he swallowed bile and turned his face away.

Flinching even at the touch of familiar fingers, he shuddered as Mateo gripped the weapon and placed a strong hand on his lower back.

“Be still, hombre hermoso. I will take it out slow.”

Adam didn’t care about anything at that moment and let his teeth sink into his wrist again as the brutally hard and thick rod was slowly pulled out of him, dragging roughly from so little lube. He winced when he heard it strike the floor.

“Adam, speak; tell me you are not hurt.”

Gasping when he released his wrist, Adam rolled to his back and pushed away the hands that tried to help him. “Leave me alone, let me up!”

He fought to sit up, the soreness deep inside making his stomach flip. Behind him, both men argued in Spanish. Adam put his wrist in his mouth to sooth it and tasted blood. His other hand touched his stomach, feeling the wet and sticky cotton of his t-shirt. He almost couldn’t bring himself to touch his softening dick, but then he couldn’t stand to remain exposed, and shoved it roughly back in his jeans.

Adam struggled to stand, to yank his jeans up and fasten them, fumbling with the belt. Mateo passed him, shut the door, and returned to steady him. Adam almost refused the help, but without it he would have fallen on the floor.

“Bathroom, now,” he ordered, his low voice almost a hiss.

They were silent as Mateo guided him to the toilet. Dropping the lid down, he helped Adam settle gingerly onto it.

Hitting his knees in front of him, Mateo touched fingertips to Adam’s knees. “He didn’t trust you, thought you were trying to trick me. We have never trusted strangers, because no one ever helped us, they only hurt.”

“You trusted me; I was helping you.”

“I know; I am sorry. Our time apart, having to live on his own; it has changed him. He never used to be cruel.”

“You have to go.”

“No. I can’t leave you like this, not after he –”

“You know you have to. They know this place, remember? They’ll come back. We all have to leave, right now. I’m not going down any fucking pipes, though. I’m going to use the front door.”

Adam watched that pretty face, studied the shifting emotions, and saw real ones mixed in with the fear, the regret.

“We will leave, but let me help you, let me….”

Adam reached out and pressed his fingertips to those lips. “I need to go downstairs and have that woman call me a taxi. You need to take your brother and get out through the window, now.”

“Adam….”

“I know. Mateo, please, just go, we’re in danger here. I won’t leave until you do, though, so you have to hurry.”

Watching him rise to his feet, Adam sighed when he turned to go. Letting his face sink into his hands, he felt his wrist and body throb in a dull ache.

Mateo’s voice sounded farther away than it could have been. “Be safe, Adam, please… and… thank you. I am sorry, so sorry you were hurt.”

Fingers rubbing his eyes, Adam shivered. “Go. If they kill you now, it’s all… been for nothing.” When Mateo’s steps left him at last, Adam whispered, “Be careful.”

He didn’t move as the soft voices in the room spoke lyrical Spanish quietly, urgently. He listened to the sounds of the window, the pipes. Harsh guttural shouts soon followed, spurring him to leave. With a hiss, he flinched and rose. Walking stiffly toward the window, he crept up from the side, out of the beam of sunlight.

The sharp bark of gunfire made him startle, but worry for Mateo moved him to cautiously peer out. He saw them, two figures running. Mateo had a pistol in each hand, the Colt and the Ruger. The other man, the man who looked just like him, held an ugly black gun with a long, thick silencer on the barrel.

Adam watched as he turned, fired, and shot a man dead without a sound. He stumbled, falling onto his knees in the beam of light. Curling in on himself, palms flat on the floor, he was sick.

***

Time stretched out, and Adam wasn’t sure how long he’d crouched there on his knees, his palms sensitive from rubbing up and down the denim on this thighs. He managed to rise to his feet and half stumbled to the bathroom. Cold water splashed on his face helped him to focus, to revive a little.

 _Downstairs. A taxi. No one’s bashed the doors in yet._

By the time he had to walk down the stairs, he could fake looking more or less human. He endured the knowing smile of the woman, though what she thought she knew was so far off base, it could have been funny.

He stood in the foyer until the taxi arrived, and managed to sit in the back without wincing. As it pulled away from the black two-story building, Adam didn’t look back on it. He kept his gaze on the front windshield, at the view slanting down through ramshackle houses, all the way down to the curve of the clean blue ocean.

***

When the taxi arrived at his hotel, he rolled down the window and let in the glorious smell of cooking food.

“What is that?” he asked the driver.

“Feijoada, sir; our national dish.”

“It smells like meat.”

“Beans and meat, yes sir.”

“Oh my God, Adam! Adam!”

He barely hid a wince from the driver as he turned. Something about the woman’s voice was familiar, though. Looking up as the driver got out and opened his door, he was shocked to see a pretty blonde rush out of the hotel.

“Lane….”

***

“Cops, lots of cops, and a fan? Lane, slow down….”

“I’ve been here since yesterday; someone found your phone and was trying to sell it. The woman who bought it is a fan on vacation; she got suspicious and turned it in to the police. They had someone check it out and called me.”

“Okay, but I seriously need to get to my room and clean up. Is my room still my room?”

“Yes, and I’m in the room next to your suite. Let me move us to the resort I picked for you, okay?”

“No, I can’t change hotels now.”

“Are you limping? Why are you limping? Adam, what happened?”

He turned and grasped her shoulders, remembering to be gentle. For a moment, all he could do was stare at her in silence, drinking in the sight of her – normal, safe Lane. That wasn’t calming her down, though. “I’ll tell you later, okay? I’ll talk to the police, make a statement, whatever, but tomorrow, okay? I’m sorry I worried anyone.”

“Do you want to fly home tomorrow?”

“No. I have one more day here, and I want to spend it on that beach, right out there. We can fly out that evening if you want. Is that okay? Lane, I need this, I need to chill. That was the point, right?”

“That was the point; God, Adam, you’re really worrying me. How did you lose your phone?”

He let her go and continued to the elevator. Without a thought, he said, “It got stolen at that crazy club I told you about.” Listening to her gentle lecture about his habit of visiting potentially dangerous sex clubs, Adam let her follow him to his door. He touched the number 333 on it.

“Adam… Adam.”

“What?”

“Don’t you want your phone?”

He stared at it, lying on her palm like an alien object. “Yes, thanks,” he said, and took it. “I’m so sorry, Lane, but I’ve got to shower and crash. I’ll apologize to the cops tomorrow, okay?”

“The fan that turned in your phone, I made a lunch date; you should meet her, thank her.” Without comment, she handed him another key to his room.

“Yeah, definitely; tomorrow, okay?” He grabbed her in a hug, clung to her just long enough to start the questions again, and then let her go. “We can talk at breakfast.”

“You know it’s still mid-afternoon, right?”

“Yes.” He unlocked his door. Before he could shut it, the look on her face stopped him. “Lane, I’m sorry. I love you, I love that you flew here and razed the whole city looking for me, but I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay. You look shell shocked. Adam, please, tell me something, anything?”

Stifling a sigh, he responded, “I went to a weird sex club. Someone stole my phone. I’m feeling really disgusting right now, and if I don’t get a shower soon, I’m going to crawl right out of my skin. I love you. Breakfast?”

“Breakfast,” she said, sounding a little dazed, and a lot suspicious.

“Would you order room service for me, for dinner? Have them bring it before sunset, and wake me then?”

“Sure,” she said, still studying him as closely as if she were reading tea leaves. “What do you want?”

“Whatever they’re cooking out there; the taxi driver called it the national dish.”

“Do you want me to join you then?”

“I’m just going to eat and go back to sleep. You can grill me tomorrow, I promise.”

Her pretty eyes sparkled with tears, and he felt terrible for scaring her, for being secretive, lying to her; but the truth wasn’t going to be told to anyone.

“Rest, okay? You need it.”

With a tired smile, Adam nodded before he closed and locked his door. He stood there a few moments, eyes darting around the small suite. The windows were closed, but the doors to the balcony were open to let in the breeze. Overhead, ceiling fans made a soft chuffing hum in time with his heartbeat.

Moving to the doors, he pulled them shut and latched them before turning to the bathroom like a drunk. He turned on the shower, mindlessly toying with the temperature. Letting it warm, he turned on the cold water at the sink to splash his face. Leaning on one palm, he slowly lifted his head to look at his reflection.

With bloodshot eyes staring back at him, his hands lowered to fumble with his belt and jeans. Once he let them drop, the spell broke and he frantically tore the boots, shirt, and t-shirt off.

Adam avoided looking at his naked body in the mirror as he gingerly reached back to touch the swollen flesh of his hole, trying to discover if he’d been seriously injured. Relieved that he wasn’t bleeding, he got into the shower stall and hissed at the touch of the scalding water. Long before it was cooled enough to tolerate it, he had scrubbed himself raw and rinsed off twice.

Careful to keep soap out of it, he flushed the shallow bite wound with water, hissing at the stinging pain. He’d have to find a way to wrap it or bandage it properly.

Palms on the tiles beside the knobs, he hung his head and let the slowly cooling water strike his back and shoulders until his skin felt numb. When he finally turned off the water, he dried his body off without looking at himself any more than he had to. Towel around his hips, he fished a clean t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs out of his luggage and slipped them on. There was no first aid kit in the room, but he made do with a new foam pad circle from his makeup case and a wide piece of lace to bandage his wrist.

He sat on the bed to scrub the towel through his hair, dropping it on the floor when he lay down and tried to compose himself for sleep.

***

Adam woke to a knock on his suite door and a friendly voice calling, “Room service.” He managed not to limp to the door.

Trying to cover his embarrassment when it turned out to be Pablo, Adam moved out of the way and let him set up the tray.

“You want it on the balcony?”

“No, no, the coffee table is fine.” Adam kept his fidgeting discomfort under control until the young man turned to face him with a worried expression.

“You are okay, sir? Everyone was afraid for you.”

He almost brushed the sincere concern away, but felt a twinge of guilt. _Next time, don’t fuck the hotel staff,_ he thought. “I’m all right, thanks; it was a misunderstanding.”

“The club, the adventure,” Pablo asked, something that might have been fear entering his pretty eyes. “If it was wrong, I am sorry, sir –”

“It was fine,” Adam lied, a muscle jumping in his tight jaw. “You didn’t mess up, okay? It was great.”

Brushing off a subtle offer of company as kindly as he could, Adam shut and locked the door behind him. Food and sleep were all he wanted.

The meal of beans and meat was delicious, though he barely managed to eat a quarter of it. He watched the sunset fade into night through the glass balcony doors and tried to drain the bottle of Patrón Lane had sent up with the food.

Leaving the tray in a shambles, the glass forgotten, he took the bottle to bed.

 _Is he alive? Or did they…._ Gulping tequila and then gasping, Adam shuddered. _I’ll never know, will I? No way to know…._

***

On the beach under an umbrella, Adam sat slumped in a lounge chair, hiding behind large dark sunglasses. The fan, Alice Baker, from an impossible to pronounce town in Oklahoma, had been a sweetheart. He and Lane had enjoyed a late lunch with her, which had been made all the more pleasant because it wasn’t explaining to the Rio police that he’d gone on a bender rather than having been kidnapped. Alice had been far more respectful of a rock star’s need to sleep in than the police, as well.

When Alice excused herself and left after lunch, Adam had impulsively hugged her and let Lane take their picture with Alice’s camera. She had been so helpful, and her giddy excitement at meeting him had been a sobering reminder of who he was – who he was trying to be.

Between the police report and Lane’s questions, he had managed to stick to his story – rock star steps out of bounds in a rough part of a tourist city, goes on a drunk bender, and loses time in a drunken bit of debauchery. Lane got more of that cover story than the police did, but they had left after giving one safety lecture. Lane gave him three. The last one had been delivered while she utilized a proper first aid kit to bandage his wrist.

His pretty manager sat in a lounger next to him now, though normally she would have been out in the sun. Adam could feel her watching him behind her Hollywood starlet sunglasses, but she kept the conversation casual.

“I got us a flight out tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

“That’s fine.”

“I thought another good night’s sleep would be better, before the grind starts again. Asia and Europe are going to be intense.”

“Thanks.”

She sat up, one finger pulling the glasses down. “You didn’t tell me everything.”

“Lane….”

“It’s okay, it is, just… you’re safe now, and that’s what matters.”

“I trust you, okay? It’s just private. I met someone, he had a place, we had some fun.”

“You didn’t report your phone stolen.”

“I didn’t notice it was until the next day. We already did this, didn’t we?”

“All right, fine. I just worry. There’s so much crime in this city, away from the tourist places; so much violence.”

Adam reached for his fancy cocktail and drank in silence, watching the other tourists and the rolling waves. They stayed there until the paparazzi found them. As Pablo and another steward hurried down from the hotel and helped hold the cameras at bay, Adam offered Lane his arm for the walk back to the hotel.

“I think I’ll just go up to my room if that’s okay, maybe nap,” he told her.

“Good idea; I’ll be lying out at the pool. If you’re out of sight, they might let me do that in peace.” She smiled and grasped his hand, winking at him.

“Maybe.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek and escaped to the elevator.

In the room, he found his jeans that he’d left filthy on the bathroom floor in a clean and pressed folded square on the coffee table, topped by his socks. The boots waited nearby. Plucking the black cotton buttoned shirt off of the hanger in front of his McQueen skull t-shirt, he waded it up and tossed it into a trash bin on the way to the couch.

***

Adam stood on the balcony as the sun was setting, arms folded on the railing. He studied the jumbled shacks and buildings up the face of the hills in silence.

Reaching for the fresh tequila bottle on the small round table to his right, he pushed one of the chairs out of the way with his toes and poured Gran Patrón Platinum tequila into an old fashioned glass with a heavy cut crystal base.

He gripped the railing in one hand and lifted the glass to the hill in a silent salute. _I hope you’re safe, Mateo._

A sharp whistle sounded below and Adam looked down at the cars that lined the streets around the hotel. Leaning on a low stucco wall, the figure of a man stood, looking up at him. He was mostly in shadow, but Adam’s heart began to thump fast when he moved and stepped into the lights of the hotel.

Arms crossed, a long-sleeved shirt hiding his hips, muscles defined by light and shadow, Mateo’s bright smile flashed from the pensively questioning expression he’d started with.

Adam held up three fingers, and then fisted his hand and showed them two more times. Motioning him up, he dropped onto the chair the moment the man moved to cross the street.

 _Oh shit, how did he know where I am?_ A momentary fear that his brother could be with him faded; he’d been alone. Downing the drink with no respect for the cost of the stuff, Adam set the glass down and went to the suite door.

Opening the door to let Mateo into the room was surreal. Seeing his dark and tangled tattoos with the blush and pastel colors of the room around him made him seem like a gothic creature that had been made from the shadows lurking in corners around them.

Without a thought, Adam closed and locked the door, and then put his back to it to study him. “Where did you come from,” he whispered. “How did you find me?”

Mateo took in the suite before he faced Adam and smiled again. “The news, they showed you on the beach. Those men, they took pictures.”

“You’re all right… you’re real.” Adam approached, not thinking before he’d already touched him, running his fingers over his collarbones, tracing the vines and black roses tattooed there.

“And you are safe; you look good, American.”

“Adam,” the singer corrected him, a slight smile on his lips. “Why did you come here?”

“I couldn’t leave you that way, but we had to go.”

“I know. I saw them chasing you away. Why did you come here, to me?”

“To say sorry –”

“You said that then. Why, Mateo?” Adam lifted his hands, one brushing black hair out of those beautiful dark eyes, the other touching the hinge of his jaw. “Why did you come to me?”

“To say goodbye.”

Adam leaned in and kissed him. Mateo kissed him back passionately a moment before moving, herding him to the nearest wall. Pushing him against it, he pulled Adam around to press his chest to the wall, his body pressing in from behind.

There was a momentary fall of dread that tried to freeze him, but then Adam knew what Mateo was doing. Shoving back into him, he spun and grabbed, snatching at the younger man and forcing him to swap positions.

“Nice try.” Grinding his hardening cock against his ass, Adam growled at his ear.

His whisper husky, rough, Mateo answered, “Fuck me… I need it….”

“Baby, you could have anyone.”

“No, not here; I cannot risk it. If they knew, if anyone knew….”

Sobering as his meaning became clear, Adam kissed his cheek and nodded. “I understand. You have to hide it. I’m sorry.”

“When you are gone, I will pretend again. I could not let you be gone without….”

“I know, I understand. Baby, I’m so sorry. You’re so beautiful, God… it’s so wrong.” Adam released him and turned him, kissing his hungry mouth gently. “Come on, I want to have you in my bed. I want to make it good, so good for you.”

Adam stripped him slowly out of his clothes, watching in silence when Mateo plucked the Colt pistol out of the back of his jeans and laid it on the nightstand. Slipping out of black harem pants and t-shirt with Mateo’s shining eyes on him, Adam blushed under his freckles as he took his hand and led him to his bed.

Far too desperately hungry for gentleness at first, Mateo drove him to take him roughly; still Adam worked to make it passionate, intense. A hollow fuck was out of the question.

At the end, lying panting over his sweaty chest, Mateo’s muscled thighs spread wide around his hips, Adam kissed him deep and slow, taking his time until he could do it again. He barely took the time to strip off the rubber and palm another one as soon as possible between wet and amazing kisses.

Suiting up again, he grabbed the fancy lube bottle and then tossed it to one side before he slid three slippery fingers back into Mateo’s barely resistant ass.

“I’m going to make you remember this,” Adam whispered. “One day, it’ll be different; you’ll be able to find someone and have them without fear. For now,” he leaned down and kissed him. “You’re mine.”

“Sí, hombre hermoso… sí.”

Adam smiled. “What are you saying?”

“Beautiful man…. You are… so beautiful.”

Biting his lower lip, Adam leaned back and lined up. Pushing his cock back in before it was all the way hard, he thrust into him slowly, feeling it harden, gasping at the intensity of it.

Mateo struggled up to prop himself on his forearms, spreading his legs wider. Adam leaned down to kiss him again and began to thrust with a mind-numbing angle and rhythm, loving every groan and gulp for air as his cock ran along the man’s prostate, pulling his nerves taut with pleasure.

Gripping the thick cock that was pressed between their bellies, Adam jacked it with agonizing slowness. He wanted this time to last, to be easy and sweet. They had time yet for more, they had time.

He thrust deep, tormenting Mateo with the need for rough, for a rush to the end. When those powerful hips jerked, his feet planting to grind his ass up into Adam’s cock, the singer pulled back, almost out. When he settled, he sank deep again.

“Easy, baby….”

“I need, please –”

“Shh… baby, shh. I’ll get you there. This doesn’t have to be rushed, we’re safe. I want to show you how it can be when you have all the time in the world. That’s heaven.”

“Are you sure it is not hell, waiting?”

“Oh, no; you’ll see. You’ve probably lived here all your life and never seen the paradise the rest of the world comes here to get lost in. Let me show you.”

“Adam….”

“Hush….”

Leaving Mateo’s dick to wait, Adam moved inside his body, slow and steady. He let it build, let it gather and twist in the pit of his gut, tangle in his balls. Giving Mateo’s cock nothing except the rub and press of their slick bodies coming together, he worked the glorious flesh he was buried in until Mateo’s hands gripped his arms, his head thrown back on his arched neck as Adam’s patient pleasure finally broke and filled him. Before Adam’s thrusts stilled, the room full of their heavy breathing and low cries, Mateo came with nothing but Adam’s cock spilling deep inside him.

***

Breaking the intense yet lazy kisses, Mateo ducked his face and whispered against Adam’s neck, “I should go.”

Adam smiled down at him. “You can go… if you leave in the morning, through the front lobby doors.”

“In the morning?”

Chuckling, Adam nodded, trailing one hand down between their tangled legs to slip a single finger into Mateo’s stretched ass, making him grunt. “In the morning, baby; this is my game now – my rules.”

“Sí….”

Adam moved up to kiss him again. “I’m going to fuck you until your eyes roll up in your head. Tell me in that pretty Spanish how good I am while I’m fucking you, and maybe I’ll do it again in the morning, too.”

“Ah, amo este juego. Cójame, hombre hermoso.”

Delighted and drunk on pleasure, Adam laughed before sinking down to light his companion’s body on fire all over again. He didn’t think about the morning, didn’t think about the end. For now, the raw hunger he took into his mouth and sucked, the luscious slick hole he sunk his fingers into, preparing it again to take his cock; these became his world, his exotic and beautiful paradise.

The End

  
**********************************

 **Spanish Translations:**

Cierre para arriba. Todavía esté. = Shut up. Be still.  
Turista americano. Perfecto. = American tourist. Perfect.  
Mierda. Tenemos que salir. Venido conmigo! = Shit. We have to get out. Come with me!  
Mierda, sí… cogida, americano loco. = Shit, yes... fuck, crazy American.  
no caber ni un alfiler = (idiom) be completely packed; be jammed; be stuffed. (lit.: no even fit in a pin)  
¿Cuáles son yo que va a hacer con usted? Americano absurdo. = What am I going to do with you? Foolish American.  
Dios me ayuda, usted se siente bien…. = God help me, you feel good....  
burdel, este lugar en donde compran el sexo = brothel, this place where they buy sex  
No se cargan. = They are not loaded.  
Por favor, necesito… No puedo… = Please, I need... I cannot...  
Sí, sí, más duro…. = Yes, yes, harder….  
Sí, se siente bien…. = Yes, it feels good….  
hombre hermoso = beautiful man  
Ah, amo este juego. Cójame, hombre hermoso. = Ah, I love this game. Fuck me, beautiful man.

  
 **Portuguese Translations:**

Sim, eu sou = yes, I am  
Viado = homosexual man  
Gato = handsome man  
Broxa = impotent man who doesn’t satisfy his woman, or a coward.  
Queima-rosca = literally "doughnut burner" (because "rosca", doughnut, is an obscene term for "anus", which supposedly "burns" with attrition during penetration): homosexual male bottom.  
Cachorro = literally "dog", treacherous man.

***


End file.
